


Powerless in the Darkest Hours

by LyricalTwilight



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Book: New Moon, Canon Compliant, Cullen Family-centric, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Reunions, Fanfiction, Gap Filler, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Multiple, Twilight Gap, Twilight Renaissance, Volturi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricalTwilight/pseuds/LyricalTwilight
Summary: To stand by helplessly as people you love are in danger is no easy task. For Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle, tensions rise, nightmares are revealed, accusations flare, and - in an attempt to keep it together - a family falls apart. - Canon NM -OR Emmett's, Rose's, Jasper's, Esme's, and Carlisle's POV when Edward, Alice, and Bella run off to Italy. (Bonus: Edward's POV when he returns to them.)
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Carlisle Cullen/Edward Cullen/Emmett Cullen/Esme Cullen/Jasper Hale/Rosalie Hale, Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Comments: 8
Kudos: 93
Collections: Twilight





	1. Emmett

**Author's Note:**

> I know there must be many stories out there with the same idea, and I tried to resist writing my own version... but I could not! It's been nagging at me for months and I didn't want to hear it anymore. So I gave in. I hope you enjoy it!

**.:Emmett:.**

Jasper sprinted across the ground. He was quick, but I was closing in on him. I knew what he would do in this situation: break left or right. Of course, lately, if he went neither way, then he'd usually—

With one great leap, Jasper grabbed a low vine and swung himself into tightly nestled branches, knowing I couldn't fit as well as he could up in these trees. Grinning, I accepted the challenge.

"You keep using this tactic and eventually I'm going to find a way through it," I told him.

I pushed my legs harder, using all my strength this time. In record speed, I heaved myself up onto a larger branch, one Jasper was just feet away from landing on. He instantly gripped another limb and forced himself back, landing safely a couple trees away from me. We stared at each other for a minute. Then another. Sensing this might take a while, I decided to speed things up and pretend to let my guard down. I sat and swung my legs over the side of the branch.

"Retreating?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Forfeiting?"

Jasper smirked. "You wish you were worth that."

I narrowed my eyes, and his lips stretched wider, amused.

"Don't think so, Jazz." I rolled my eyes. "You are all talk. You may have speed, but once I get my arms around you, you know you're defeated."

"Please don't start going around flattering yourself, Em — you're starting to sound like your wife."

I smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Of course you will." Jasper shook his head, looked up at the sky, and sighed. My grin dropped when I caught a glimpse of his face.

"I'm worried about Alice," he confessed suddenly.

I'd known this already. Ever since Alice left for Forks after her vision, my brother's been a little on edge. But he knew it was the only relief Alice would ever get from her friend's death... Of course, that was in the past now. Just a few minutes ago, Alice had called Jasper. Turned out Bella wasn't dead after all. Alice had missed something in her vision. So now, despite how grateful and relieved I was that little Bella was alive and okay, there would be a big consequence for Alice being in Washington, involving everybody.

"I'm worried about the effect her being in Forks is having on her. Seeing Bella again..." He was shaking his head.

"Have something against Bella?" I asked with a snicker when he didn't go on.

"Of course not." He scowled at me. "We weren't supposed to interfere with her life anymore, though. And Alice, after being so long without her, might not be able to leave this time. She'll finally have her friend back. And what about Bella herself?"

"I know what you mean. But there's no point in worrying, is there? Whatever happens, will happen. Alice will see anything coming." I shrugged it off. What was with this family and pessimism? Especially ever since Edward left.

My mood instantly fell at the thought of the youngest (in one way, at least) of my brothers, and I hated it. Wherever he was, he had better be making an effort to be happy. I didn't like worrying about anybody.

The silence of Jasper and I lost in our thoughts suddenly shattered.

"EMM _ETT_!"

Rosalie's panicked scream echoed through the woods, striking harder than a lightning storm.

"Emmett, _help_!"

I was out of the tree and my feet were moving the moment they hit the snow, faster than before, in the opposite direction of Jasper, towards Rosalie's piercing, shrill cry.

What the hell was wrong? Was Rosalie—

Before I could conjure up any assumptions, I saw her. She looked fine, unharmed...

"Emmett!" She slammed into me. I caught her in my arms, but then she leaned out of them to look me in the face while tugging on my hands. "Emmett, we need to do something." There was a wild fire in her eyes — and not the good kind. What happened? What would give Rosalie reason to panic like this, and give _myself_ a reason to follow suit? Because anything that threatened her threatened me. And she was usually always composed in tough situations.

"What's going on, Rose? What is it?"

"Something terrible. Something—" Her eyes went to Jasper, who had appeared beside me. "Alice. Alice saw Edward..." She looked back at me. "Well, it was me... Bella..."

"Rosalie." Jasper's hand fell onto her shoulder. Rose shook her head — one sharp swing. I watched as unexpected guilt entered her eyes.

"It's Edward. I... I called him."

It took me a moment, but then I knew what it was she was talking about, what this was leading to. So did Jasper. His hand fell from Rose's shoulder.

"You didn't do it," he said, as if he was denying the answer already. "You didn't."

But the look on her radiant face told us she _did_.

Her fingers gripped my arm tight. "Yes. I told him about Bella."

"Why?" Jasper started to say, exasperated. "What would drive you to—?"

"It's already done," I interrupted, and then demanded another answer from her. "What happened when you told him about what Bella did? What did he say?" Edward couldn't have taken the news lightly — he never took anything lightly — if he believed it at all. He could be unreasonably stubborn sometimes. And when I said 'sometimes' I really meant all the time.

"He didn't say anything." Rosalie hesitated, looking back frantically toward the house, then back at us. "He... Alice had a vision."

"Another one?"

"Yes." She gave me a look that I knew well: _'Keep up, Emmett. It's obvious!'_ "Alice called me after I spoke with Edward..." She looked uncomfortable now. Then she pressed on, fiercely. "Look, we have to do something fast. Edward is off to get himself killed like some vampire Romeo who's lost his Juliet!" She pivoted back toward the Denalis' place. Her hands slipped off me and I easily let them go, my mind elsewhere.

_Did I hear that correctly?_

"Rosalie, what are you saying?" Jasper asked slowly, uncomprehending. I wasn't the only one trying to make sense of what had just been said. I mean, Edward couldn't be... 

"Edward can't... Why would he do that?" I asked out loud, full of confusion. "Alice called Jazz — Bella's still alive. It's not like he's lost her..."

I was hit with a thought then. Hesitantly, I asked her, "Didn't you know that?"

Rosalie turned back to face us. "At the time...no." She gave a short sigh before her speedy explanation. "He hung up on me when I told him about Bella's...death. I thought he expected me to be cruel enough to joke about something like this, but instead, it seems, he is taking action to join his beloved human in death." She gave us another look, one of deep threat, a warning that she was dead serious and there was no miscommunication on what Edward was planning for himself.

We needed to move, I knew that. And I wished I could move. My limbs felt leaden. Inside, I was spitting mad, snarling and cursing. But my body was stiff as stone.

Edward was going to kill himself? Just like that?

Of all the ways to die, could any be more humiliating, more ridiculous? Not to die suddenly, put out in a blaze of glory. Not to die at the hands of an enemy during battle, noble-like. Not even to fade away at the ending of time. All those deaths couldn't be helped, and while I would have fought against any of them, fates like those were nothing compared to this — to die because he inexplicably lacked the will to go on after losing the woman he loved, his mate. A mate that _isn't_ lost. To die over misunderstandings. To kill himself for _nothing_.

No, that wasn't possible. I wouldn't let it be possible.

I forced down the burbling panic and found my voice and movement with my determination.

"We have to stop him." I grabbed Rosalie's hand as I passed her, now sprinting toward the house. "We have to find Edward before he can do this."

"Where is he headed? What did Alice tell you?" Jasper demanded from my wife, easily keeping up.

"Italy. Edward is going to Italy."

Jasper and I shared a frantic glance. Italy. Really, Edward? _Really?_

Jasper growled. "Crap."

"There have to be flights available," Rosalie said. "We can intercept him before he gets anywhere near the Volturi."

"Only if he's planning to talk to them," Jasper countered. "He could just as easily do something illegal. That won't give us the time to reach him."

Rose glared at him, impatient. "This is Edward we're talking about. He'll want an audience for whatever theatrics he has planned. And you know he'll plan it."

She did have a point.

"It doesn't matter what he wants, he's not getting away with this," I said.

When we reached the Denali Estate — a cream, brick, and stone mansion set in an old Victorian style — that we had taken residency in for the past week, I went immediately for the car keys. "Come on, Rose. You can call and get tickets for the first plane out of here."

She was already running to the car.

"Jasper?"

"I'll stay here, wait for Alice, meet her wherever she wants." His eyes were deep in calculation. We didn't have time to stand around, so I left him, not caring what his plan was, knowing he'd come up with one eventually. "I'll call you when I contact Alice," he called after me, just as I slammed the jeep door shut and started the engine.

I drove down roads and highways at an illegal speed, a string of words — mostly profanity — spilling from my mouth, all revolving around Edward, Bella, Forks, Alice, the Volturi, and just all the impossible ridiculousness of this entire situation that just pissed me off and scared the crap out of me at the same time. But Rosalie — she hardly said a word. As the drive progressed, she became even more quiet and withdrawn. A silence had fallen between us, and, even though I tried, I couldn't understand where it was coming from. It wasn't like her at all. I could only guess she was struggling with fear for our brother.

Rosalie was a beautiful blonde riddle to me a lot of the time. She held this outer shell that could either be contradicting what she was really feeling or not, and it was difficult to tell. Still, I tried.

"He's pretty dramatic, isn't he?" I decided to say, to ease the air some. "Edward, I mean."

"Yes."

"There are plenty of actions he can take," I went on when she didn't say anything else. "It wouldn't be like him to use the quickest route rather than the theatrical one, so that should buy time, and time's good." I paused. "Although, he's always been very thorough..." I suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Saying that Edward was theatrical but thorough was an understatement of grotesquely funny proportions.

"You wouldn't think he would have taken anything I said to heart right away," she said suddenly, quietly, for her. "You would think he would have check with someone he... trusted more."

Her words triggered something. With a sinking feeling, I instantly saw the position Rose had put herself in.

Earlier, though I had wondered, I refrained from questioning her motivation for calling Edward in the first place. It didn't seem a good time, and we were in a hurry. It was clear Jasper had been a bit put out with her, but I knew Rosalie. Even if whatever reason she had for doing what she did was, for lack of a better word, selfish, she wasn't callous. She would never purposely hurt anybody. In her mind, her reason was meant to only do good. I couldn't imagine she had ever been the cause of such a horror in her life.

But she was _not_ the cause — she was a little piece of a puzzle of inconvenient coincidences. Honestly, _Bella jumping off a cliff_? Alice seeing it, but not catching that she had survived even though she waited and waited for Bella to resurface? And I was sure there were things I had no idea about — on Alice's side, on Bella's, and on Edward's. Something was seriously up with the world. Rosalie had to see this.

Then again, it wasn't unknown that she was never one for self-loathing... So maybe I was misinterpreting her words. But how could I tell? Her face and voice did a complete one-eighty from when she rushed into me in the woods. Then, she was frantic with panic; now, she was stoic, almost bitter. Again, sometimes I just didn't understand her. But I knew, right now, that I needed to.

"Rosalie, we're going to get Edward back. We'll fix this," I said. What I really wanted to say was that I wished more than anything luck was on our side, so then I could be the one to kill Edward myself for doing something so stupid and rash. Usually, I wouldn't have any problem at all with expressing myself, but something prodded at me to tread carefully.

Rosalie didn't respond again.

I hesitated. "It'll be okay, babe."

"Just drive, Em."

I grew frustrated, but left her alone. If Rosalie wanted to say something, she'd say it. Of course... I took an anxious peek at my wife. It was usually the things she didn't say that mattered most.

Minutes of torturous silence later, my phone rang, interrupting the internal inspirational speech I was giving myself about being optimistic and determined and focused. I checked the number before answering. "It's Jasper," I murmured for Rose's benefit while I flipped the phone open. "Jazz, what—"

"Turn around, Emmett." His voice was dead, emotionless.

"What?" _Was he serious?_ "No way! We just hit McKinley Park. It isn't even ten minutes away from the air—"

"Doesn't matter. Turn around. They're Alice's orders."

"We don't have time for this. Edward will—"

"Edward will act instantly the moment our thoughts are in range of his hearing, even if we could get to Italy in time. The plan is not going to work."

My jaw clenched as I understood what he meant. I'd have no trouble keeping Edward from doing anything stupid once I got a hold of him, but I'd have to manage that first, and sneaking up on Edward was next to impossible. More often than not, having a mind-reader for a brother was a giant pain in the ass.

"Do not get on that plane," he continued. "Call and cancel the tickets, and come back."

I sighed, heavy and loud, and hung up. Jasper would know I was following _orders_.

"He can't be serious," Rosalie fumed, having heard the exchange clearly. She was not as obeying as I was — it was one of the things I loved about her, though. Her head turned swiftly in my direction, her gold hair mesmerizing me for a moment as it flew behind her shoulder. "Are we supposed to not even try? Are we just going to let Edward die?"

I flinched. There was no way in hell I liked this any more than she did. But if this was Alice telling us, there had to be some motive behind it. Was it possible that we would have never made it in time anyway, no matter what course of action we lead?

I scoffed at the idea. No, Alice wouldn't give up on our brother, either.

I made a U-turn at the first available opportunity.

"Emmett!"

"I'm sorry, Rose, but..."

"How is this going to help? Running away - is that what we're doing?"

I scowled at that. "I don't know, but I'm sure Alice knows what she's doing. You know Jasper wouldn't listen to her otherwise." _Otherwise_ , I'd have a bone to pick with both of them — a violent one. Because not one of us was going to allow Edward to... Ugh! Damn it! Why was this happening? Why now? What in the hell was that mind-reader thinking? How could death be the automatic solution?

Unless it wasn't automatic.

Unless it wasn't spontaneous.

Being Edward, perhaps this was thought out well before. Maybe this was his plan all along. Maybe he never even considered living a life without Bella.

That realization shook me.

Without my brother around I had been constantly bored, aside from my time spent with Rosalie. But Edward had been roaming the world moping, depressed, and I should have gone out to find him. I should have brought him home even if I had to drag him in pieces. I saw how miserable he was, but I left him alone. We all did. I think that was wrong. He had been around as an immortal for eighty-eight years, yet he was still a seventeen-year-old kid and vulnerable in so many ways. Technically, he was born in a slightly earlier time than I was, but I had always seen him as my kid brother, one that I had always wanted to have. I had sworn, in my human days, that if I hadn't been the youngest in the family, if I had had a younger brother, I'd be there for him the way my own older brothers had never been there for me. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have made an awesome big brother to someone. And now I had failed myself, and my brother. I'd gone back on a promise I made to Edward without even realizing I had made it to him. Jasper and I should have tracked his brooding ass down even if it wasn't our place. As a vampire, Edward was technically free to do what he wished, but... No - he was more than just a vampire — he was family! I should have helped him when he needed it, whether he wanted it or not. That was what I should've done.

Still, I wouldn't have ever thought of this happening. There was no way I could have pictured something like this being possible. Not until now.

Maybe I wasn't being fair, being mad at Edward's choice. I might not be picturing it from the right angle, because what if I had been in his place, if Rosalie was the one who had been 'lost'? Not a pleasant thought. Quite unbearable, actually. Would I kill myself, though? If I wasn't so deep in the pain that would accompany her death and enable myself to move, yeah, I probably would want to burn myself into oblivion to join her. What was a life without Rose? But would I not even think, for one instant, the effect of what would happen to the people I left behind? Or would I even think of them at all? Heck, my family could probably go on without me. Not saying they wouldn't be sad, that they wouldn't mourn; but they'd live on. It was likely Edward thought the same way. But...I didn't think it _was_ the same. Edward and I held the family together in different places. I kept the outer rims of our circle in place, with my bright humor, with my physical strength; _he_ kept the inner planes intact. He was closer to the core and was, therefore, more important to the family structure.

And things were definitely going to fall apart if Edward wasn't stopped.

Rosalie seethed with scarily visible anger from the passenger seat during the ride back to the Denalis' place. She was out of the car before I had parked it. She slammed the door and stomped into the house — her hips swinging, her hands almost claw-shaped — without a glance or word at me. I followed with a prepared stance against the conversation I knew was coming. Jasper, and Alice for that matter, better know what they were doing.

"Jasper!" Rosalie called, following his scent into the kitchen.

Jasper stood with his head down, hands leaning against the island in the center of the room. He looked almost sick.

"Jasper, what is Alice _thinking_?" Something in her question seemed to remind her of something, seemed to hurt her. I watched her face carefully. "I mean, what is she planning to do?"

"Alice sees that Bella is our only hope, if there is a hope. Edward has to see her with his own eyes or he won't be saved." His voice hadn't changed from how it sounded through the phone. If anything, it was worse.

"Alice is taking Bella to Italy?" I caught on with wide eyes. That was insane! Insane and, horrifically, the only option available to us, I realized. "Damn it!" My fist collided with the wall. I grimaced at the crumbling hole left in it, hating the resemblance it now had on our lives. I'd also have to apologize to the Denalis about that later, but I couldn't find the will to care.

"It's the only chance we have," Jasper said, matter-of-fact. He appeared troubled, and was failing at trying to hide it.

"And what about us?" Rosalie asked.

"Yeah. We have to do something," I said.

"No."

"What?"

Rosalie's gold eyes raged. "No? _No?_ What do you propose we do then, Jasper? Sit around and do nothing? Sit back and wait this out?"

"It's all we can do."

"That's not—"

"That's not _what_?" Jasper was suddenly vicious. Both Rose and I leaned back in surprise. "That's not _fair_? That's not _right_? How true I know that is. Trust me, it's all I can care to think about. But really, you should worry more about your own well-being, Rosalie - you haven't seemed to be doing much of that lately." The sarcasm dripped from his voice as much as the venom did.

Rose turned defensive. Her voice raised. "What gives you the right to speak to me like I don't give a damn what happens?"

"You want a reason? You deliberately tracked Edward down to tell him the girl he loves died, and he thinks it's because of him. You went back on what we all agreed on, without considering—"

"I did not agree to that, you automatically assumed. Edward had a right to know." For a quick moment, I swear I saw Rose's eyes glint with some emotion I'd never seen there before and her bottom lip tremble slightly. But her face was angry again before I could process anything.

"Not like this, Rosalie," Jasper said in a tone that had me instinctively positioning myself halfway in front of my wife. "You do things like this and then you wonder why sometimes anybody can hardly stand to be around you."

"Jasp _er..._ " My voice was low and thick with warning. We didn't need this right now. There was already something wrong with Rosalie, and then Edward...and everybody! I refused to even think about Carlisle and Esme, who had been away hunting for the past couple of days and would be back early tomorrow. We _really_ didn't need this right now.

"Edward was miserable, Jasper," Rosalie said. "Moping over Bella worse than a lost puppy. He deserved some sense of relief."

" _Relief?"_

Even I paused and glanced sideways at Rose.

"Yes." Rosalie seemed both confused and angry at our surprise, but she carried on, stern. "Edward was supposed to come home. When he had nothing to run from anymore. I— Esme and Carlisle — they needed Edward back. And Emmett. Our family was incomplete. I just wanted it back."

"Rosalie, what are you playing at? First you say it was because Edward had a right to know, then you 'wanted your family back'? Stop trying to excuse your actions like they were insignificant to what is happening."

"They are not excuses!" Rosalie glared at the same time I said, "Rose isn't a liar."

"Well, she isn't truthful," Jasper said. "She can't be with so little remorse in her. Wouldn't doubt if the fear that is there is merely for how she's being portrayed now, instead of for the people she claims to care—"

"Man, quit taking this out on her!" I growled. "We are just as scared right now as you—"

"Don't compare _emotions_ to me." Jasper's eyes sparked. His voice dropped, became lower, deadlier. "Alice is heading to Italy with Bella to save Edward with odds that aren't even close to _okay_. You'll lose what in this? A brother, a sister or two? I'll lose Alice. As much as I love my family, there is no comparison to losing a mate." He shot a look at Rosalie and spat, "Just ask Edward."

"Goddamn it—" my voice rattled the entire house "—we're NOT going to lose ANYBODY!"

The silence that followed was filled with steely tension and irrational fury. Anger always instantaneously appeared where fear was involved, I thought, as if it helped drown a person's worries. But I didn't care for reasons. I glared at my brother, who, just an hour ago, was relaxed and happy (enough) hunting with me. Now he looked dangerous, ready to kill, and I understood the anxiety behind that, I guessed, but...I didn't like it. It felt like another rip in the family structure.

Jasper turned his back on us. "It doesn't matter now." His voice was calmer, but there was a dark edge to it. "What's done _is_ done, and there is no going back. But I know this much, Rosalie—" Jasper looked back, just slightly, over his shoulder "—Alice swore to me that she would get away and come back no matter what. And I promised her I would not follow after if she were to be lost. Both of us lied." I stared wide-eyed at him as comprehension hit. "Either way this plays out, the charge that obliterated our brother's only speck of happiness and the results that follow is not something I'd want on _my_ conscience forever."

As Jasper slid out the back door, disappearing into the woods, heading who knew where, I wished I could disagree with him, but knew that I couldn't.

"Rose," I tried to start.

Blonde hair slapped me in the face as she spun away from me. My arm went out, my hand curling around her side and turning her back to me. My other hand flashed up, catching Rosalie's wrist as she tried to shove me away. She was dressed in a loose silk blouse which top buttons were undone enough to show a little bit of her—well, I'm only a man, and Rosalie was a goddess, of course I looked. But her beauty, for once, couldn't keep my attention. I was too anxious about everyone and everything.

"Emmett, let go of me."

Hesitantly, against my better judgment or for it — I really couldn't tell anymore — I let go of her wrist and waist. She retreated two steps and tried her best glare at me. If I didn't know her for as long as I have, if I was dumb enough not to see through that sturdy wall of ice she kept up, it might have worked. But as it was, it had no effect on me. She must have known this; when I opened my mouth, she spun quickly and dashed up the stairs before I could get a sound out. I sighed. I had to decide if I was going to follow her against her wishes or not. And I knew the mistake I made with Edward.

Playing the fool had its advantages — no one expected much from you, therefore you exceeded their expectations more gloriously than if they had believed you could manage it. Sometimes, though, the mask had to slide off. Any ignorance of mine had to be pushed aside, and any pride of hers had to be seen through. All this drama and fear was overwhelming me. I wasn't used to it. When bad things happened, that was when a person's true valor was shown. And, goddamn it, I wish I was stronger.


	2. Rosalie

**.:Rosalie:.**

_If only I had known then what I knew now._

Those words echoed on and on inside my mind, like a ball of yarn rolling down an endless staircase — it left a trail, evidence of its passing, but it would never find the bottom. Even if I lived forever, this bundle of guilt would never end.

"Rose."

Great. Emmett was following me.

The situation that has befallen us was troubling on levels I never could have imagined existed. All of it, the whole ordeal was too much.

Why did Edward have to do it? Why did he have to fall for some human girl and endanger everybody? And now, so theatrical and dramatic, he had to go off and purposely get himself killed. Was he thinking of anybody besides himself? Was he thinking of Esme, of Carlisle! He had a family; he was supposed to get a hold of himself and come home to it. What was wrong with that boy and his outstanding ability to cause problems bigger than the norm? Always. Always leave it to Edward to achieve the impossible.

_And leave it to me to assist him at the worst time._

My stomach clenched in a sickening way. Was it just me, or was the hall suddenly spinning?

_Vampires can't faint, Rosalie. Snap out of it!_

But the feeling of nausea was now, it seemed, a permanent part of my nature. It would not ease.

"Rose!" Emmett called again.

I ignored him as I continued my way, inwardly pleading he would take my hint and leave me alone. As much as I needed him right now, I needed him away from me more.

"Rosalie, wait." His massive body was in front of me just as I was reaching for the bedroom door's knob.

Of course, Emmett was persistent when he was focused on something. Plus, he had no one else to go to right now.

"Babe, talk to me. Please."

And he was worried about me.

Or _for_ me.

"I don't feel like talking, Emmett," I said, my arms folding over my chest — not in a gesture of impatience, but to keep myself together. Every time I talked to somebody, every time I uttered a word I ended up being detested. The thought that I might risk that with Emmett was prodding at my brain, at my heart. I could not afford it.

"We need to talk," he insisted. "Things are falling apart around here."

"Things have been falling apart since Bella Swan arrived in the first place. She should have been gone from our lives." My mouth snapped shut in response to my immediate realization of what I was saying, to how it sounded. It was wrong. I meant that Bella and my family were supposed to have parted ways permanently last September, for the good and safety of us all, including and especially Bella, the human in everything. Instead, my words had come out horribly rude. Like I wanted her dead. "My mistake. That's not what I meant."

"Really?"

I looked up, trying to understand his meaning but seeing only uncharacteristic suspicion in his eyes. Was he suspecting I would purposely hurt our brother, our family? My stomach clenched again, curling. I wouldn't have this conversation. I couldn't.

Ostensibly reaching around him for the door, I passed closer than necessary, letting my body brush against him. Predictably, Emmett's gaze dropped from my face. I squeezed slowly around him, opening Kate's bedroom door, and pressing further onto him, acting as if I needed to in order to get inside. The movement enhanced the view of my chest. Emmett watched for only a second longer, before tearing his gaze away with a growl.

"Stop that, Rose. I'm not going to be distracted. I want you to talk to me."

I sighed in irritation, in secret desperation — as I could not have him around me right now — and I pushed him aside, walking normally into our borrowed room. He was right behind me, shutting the door automatically.

"What for, Em?" I asked, harsh now (an automatic defense). "Are you going to accuse me more? Put me on trial? Spew your disgust for what I've done?" His look of genuine shock fueled my sharp tongue further. "What do you want me to say? What do you want me to confirm, to commit? What else would you like to despise me for?"

I looked directly into his wide eyes, demanding an answer; truthfully, not wishing to hear it.

"You know I couldn't ever despise you," he said slowly. "And I'm not accusing you of anything."

I did a very unladylike snort and moved to look out the window. I felt like...like crying. Yes, I supposed that was the right word for this tightness in my throat and ache in my eyes. But I couldn't with Emmett here.

He watched me for a moment, trying to decipher me as always. I wished he would stop — I was not really worth understanding.

"Babe, will you answer me something?" he asked after I watched his reflection in the window stare at me for a minute longer, seeming to deliberate something in his head.

"If I do, will you go?"

It stung when hurt flashed across his face. A man like Emmett did not deserve to be hurt, no matter how small or temporary, and I would bring insult down on anyone who dared to do it. Of course, now, I couldn't come to regret my words enough to take them back. I wanted my privacy right now, to be alone with my thoughts. Thoughts that I needed to think about. Thoughts that I wouldn't think about until I was alone.

That, and the burst of sobs tickling my throat were edging closer.

Emmett didn't answer my guilt-filled question. Instead, he asked his own.

"Did you tell Edward of Bella's death just for the satisfaction of breaking the news that Bella was gone?"

Pain sliced through me. What nonsense everyone was spewing today. It made my heart wrench at such an unbelievably absurd accusation, hating even more that it came from the man I loved.

It was pure callousness to wish for young Bella's death. I mourned the girl for what she was worth when I heard of what had happened to her, of what Alice had seen. Over any problems I had with Bella, I never failed to acknowledge that she had made my brother happier than he'd ever been in his eighty-odd years of immortality. Though the reason of why that was was beyond me still, I respected her for that much.

However, aside from Edward's obvious changes, she was a nuisance to our immortal lives. It was nothing personal, per se. My envy of the girl's humanity and the fact Edward had seen a beauty in her that he never even remotely saw in me had well been past me. Even though the others seemed to enjoy her, care for her more than they ever showed me... It wasn't fair. Bella was always, to me, just like any other human. Death was natural. It was inevitable. It was, for so many reasons, the right ending. The lucky ending. I had felt, at the time, that it was a shame she died so young. A shame she died so savagely. She should have lived her life. And it angered me that part of why she didn't was because of us, because of Edward.

No, I did not miss the girl. But I had mourned for her when I thought her gone, which was more than I could even say about the humans I used to know when I was human too, like my closest friend Vera. Of course, Vera's life was much different. She had the perfect family I only ever dreamed of having. How could I properly mourn my old friend when I envied her life — and death — too much?

If I was truly being honest with myself in regard to Bella, there was a light in my mind that was—not glad; but rather...relieved at having to worry no more about the human girl in Forks, how ever horrible that might deem me.

Although he'd never been happier than when he was with Bella, Edward also had never been so miserable. All his suffering was for the girl. (He had always been the sickeningly noble type, hadn't he?) With Bella no longer an obstacle, amidst the tragedy, Edward no longer had a reason to fight so hard to stay away. I had thought that once there was nothing left of the past, that once it was all over, Edward would get over it. I wasn't stupid; I knew it would take time. And so the _sooner_ he knew about it, the sooner he could start healing.

"Well?" Emmett demanded, fast and sharp, when I didn't respond.

"So you _are_ here to accuse me," I said as sourly as I was capable — which, to my disappointment, failed to hold much scorn.

Emmett's jaw clenched, like he was trying to bite his tongue and keep from saying something. Admitting that he was exactly like Jasper and Alice, probably.

I tried to focus my gaze beyond Emmett's reflection and the glass in the window, out to the waving trees and shimmering snow.

I was irritated at them for distrusting me. And I disliked myself more for giving them a sound reason to.

But it was not my fault! All I wanted was my family back. I did it for them — for Emmett and Esme and Carlisle and everybody! Was that so wrong? Was it so hideous of me to act on something that should have brought Edward home to us? That should have made things right again? I didn't make Edward do what he was doing! I hadn't known! I hadn't _known_.

I blinked rapidly, forcing myself to refocus on Emmett, to concentrate on getting him out. I was losing an inner battle, and I didn't want him around to see it.

"I said this before, and you know how I do not like to repeat myself." An angry tone masked well the feelings I could not show him. "Edward deserved to know. He would have found out eventually, and he would have hated us for keeping it from him. It was better for him to find out the truth now, straight out, rather than him coming home and reading it in our thoughts."

It was not a lie. I had truly believed that...at the time. I had also truly believed Bella was dead. If I hadn't acted so rashly, Edward wouldn't have had the chance to act the same way.

My body suddenly felt heavier.

"Rose, I can't see it. How would you know what's best for Edward? _Edward_ doesn't even know what's best for Edward."

"All I know is, he is making too big a theatric of the news, as always. He takes the smallest little—"

"Bella Swan, the girl he loves, supposedly commits suicide and the only clue as to why is because of him. That's not small, Rose. That's apocalyptic!"

"Oh, please. Spare me the—"

"Rosalie." He was in front of me again. He pressed the palms of his hands against both my cheeks and forced me to look at him. The wide, gold eyes on his boyish face were filled with the deepest concern. "Don't shut me out," he pleaded. It was strange — all traces of his previous suspicion had vanished. I felt as though I was looking at somebody who loved me again, and, although somewhere in me felt it was undeserved, it was comforting.

"What are you getting at, Emmett? Just spit it out." I was on the verge of a breakdown. It was creeping dangerously closer. There was no time for beating around the bush.

"We can't help Edward now..." The pain in his words stung us both. "But we have each other, the rest of our family. They need us. I need you, and you keeping things to yourself—"

"I'm not keeping anything to myself."

"Your feelings, Rosalie! Your _reasoning_. The truth about _you_. Stop fighting yourself. I'm tired of watching it."

For the first time in all the years I'd known him, he really did look tired. And I was the one who brought this side of him out — this side that lacked cheer and optimism and humor.

_How many more people could I ruin in less than twenty-four hours?_

I cringed as my subconscious answered by showing me a picture of my smiling adoptive parents.

_Right_ , I sighed, shaking.

As I looked into my husband's eyes I could see the persuasion there, and my mind wavering. Maybe I should speak, truly speak, with my whole heart and let him _see_. And I knew this before. I didn't need anyone to tell me. But it was not in my nature. I thought it would be easy to apologize, because I _was_ sorry, and because Emmett deserved at least that much from me, as did everyone, whether it was enough to excuse me or not. Then I started to worry that my admittance might not be taken the right way — he might be offended, instead. He might see me as hideous a person as I felt and I didn't think I could bear the world without him. No — I could not bear that.

And in that vision of loneliness, I saw, perfectly, the half a year Edward had spent away from Bella and the pain that was leading Edward to Italy.

But Bella was a mere human and Edward refused to change her! How could their love possibly match mine and Emmett's? I couldn't put sense to it. It did not make any! How could Edward be headed off to die just like that?

A shock to Emmett and I, my knees nearly gave out. My hands gripped his forearms at the same time he grabbed for mine. Alarm showed on his face, concern. Is that what this would lead to if I caved into his loving gaze? Emmett was the type who wanted to help the weak, the pitiful.

All I felt... It was better for him not to know. I wouldn't let him pity and comfort me simply because it was in his nature to help the needy. I would not be needy.

Jasper was already gone, and Emmett wouldn't be able to stay around the house with nothing to do but worry, so I'd stay here, refuse to talk, and wait until the house grew quiet and empty. Then I would do what I needed to — alone.

I fixed myself, lifting myself upright again. The movement was slow and pained. Despite my inner monologue, there was no confidence in me. There was only the guilty truth. No matter what I thought, no matter what I told others, there was that deep-down gut feeling that I knew held the things I refused to acknowledge whole-heartedly, because... because...

I stood silent as I sought answers in my reflection in Emmett's desperate eyes. The soft, subtle waves of my hair were heavy and protective around my shoulders. It felt good, like a cloak I could hide under. My nude lips, the smooth planes of my diamond-hard face, my round, golden eyes that accented the gold of my hair; each point and feature were unquestionably beautiful, the finest in the whole world. Yet, my eyes were sated with ugliness — the ugliness that was guilt.

The repentance I felt must not dominate my mind as it did my eyes, and that had to come off as obvious to the others... But it was misinterpreted.

I knew that to them — to Jasper and Emmett (and I wouldn't count Alice out) — I feared for my reputation more than my own brother's life. How could they think me so cold-hearted? I've done inexcusable, crude things in the past, it was true — but this? I thought they would understand a little better, just a bit. And even if they couldn't, they were my family; they should have at least made an effort.

Maybe it wasn't fair to expect any mercy from them when I rarely showed any to others.

Perhaps it was all karma.

But I never would have called him if I knew what he would do. I didn't want Edward to die. As annoying and arrogant as he was, he was my brother, and I loved him as one. He didn't think much of me, I knew; and I didn't think much of him. And it could be that we irritated each other so much because we were, as much as I hated to admit it, very similar. Our wit and humor, our hobbies, our confidence, our stubbornness... _Nobody_ was enjoying Edward's absence. It frustrated me that he could have so much more worth in this family than me, but I'd be lying if I said Edward wasn't a solid, irreplaceable piece in our lives.

"I missed him."

Emmett raised a dark eyebrow, confused at my sudden confession.

"I wanted him home, everybody did. I called him until he picked up because I thought if I told him the news then we could all be a family again. Nobody but Alice was happy around here, and Alice lived in her own world. Edward wouldn't have appreciated us holding back what we knew about Bella. He would have been furious if he found out any other way but directly. I thought the sooner the better. Get it over with. I thought he'd appreciate it. I knew he'd hurt in the beginning, a little, but then he'd be able to _move on_. He wasn't supposed to _do this_! I didn't _know_!" My eyes searched wildly around the room, thoughts and emotions colliding inside of me as I tried to find somewhere safe to look, because Emmett's eyes were not that place; of course, I ended up there anyway.

My husband nodded sympathetically when I didn't go on. His pity, then, sprang my rationality forward. I managed one last thought of denial, of forcing back any fault I knew was mine... and then I couldn't anymore.

I had never lacked a backbone and had never stood for the lack of it in others. In fact, nothing irritated me more. So I needed to, now, face and accept the cold, hard reality: Edward was off to die...and it was my fault. I hung my head, staring bleakly at my feet. 

This wasn't about me anymore. Hell, it never had been. Edward had to make it out of this — Edward and Alice...and Bella. All of them. They had to return.

"Emmett." I silently gulped, swallowing my pride for all its worth now. I looked back up to his face with a rush of determination. "I'm scared. Terrified. And you... All of you think I would do something this appalling on purpose." I laughed, the sound bitter and unamused, hurt, unquestionably frightened, with possibly a hint of hysteria.

Emmett's brow creased. He seemed to contemplate this prospect gravely, and I didn't understand what he was thinking.

My terror exploded.

I had shrunk away from anything remotely connected to this direction of talk, and now here I was confessing every fault I possessed and then some. I panicked, looking into his eyes again at my stunning reflection. I took it all in. Every vibrant detail, every ounce of perfection, every shadowed corner of pride. There was a world shown in the reflection, and it was mine. The strong, safe world I had fashioned for myself out of nothing but my own insecurities, the timidity my own human days had cultivated.

Words I never had experienced before filled my throat.

"I hate myself for being so confident in my ignorance," I cried. "I hate myself for being the one to tell him the news. I hate that I've given others reason to hate me. Has everyone forgotten the most important reason I am able to cope in this life? I didn't choose it, being a vampire, and I don't find pleasure in it aside from a few perks and you, Emmett. And, importantly, despite that I lost everything I dreamed of, I gained a wonderful family. One worthy of my love. You know what I would do to protect it, and if you think I would throw that away with just one— over this—" My voice had risen as I went on, a growl of frustration and rejection sliding out when I failed to find coherent words to continue.

As clear as the sun in the sky, I could see it now. My own reflection did not bring joy to me. I did not see just the outer shell of Rosalie Hale Cullen — I saw more than I cared to.

All of this I spoke of was about me. I was dead frightened for my brother and sister, but _I_ wanted comfort. No, I was not more worried about what would become of me over what would become of them. I was, selfishly, _equally_ worried.

Beneath my glowing physical appearance, I was as gruesome as they came.

My lungs seemed to have constricted, making it hard to breathe, so I stopped altogether. I knew that if it was possible my heart would be hammering and my pulse racing. A denial rose instantly to my lips, but I choked it back and didn't say a word. Announcing innocence was clearly a waste of time. Nothing out of my mouth would prove anything. I wasn't to be trusted anymore. I was more a monster now than ever before.

That's what I was — I was beautiful, I was selfish, I was a monster. And I was sorry.

I bit my lip, my fingers digging into my palms, eyes closed, letting this wave of disgust for myself fill me. It was brand new, this feeling. I'd never done something so terrible before, and it was never meant to end this way. My nails broke my skin, but I felt no pain. I wished I could; if only to give me something else to think about.

I sensed Emmett hovering, watching, worrying. Any other man would have thrown up his hands and left me there to suffer as I deserved. But no, not Emmett. I should not have doubted him simply because I doubted my worth for him. Emmett drew me to him, slipping his arms around me like a duvet. My face was buried into his defined chest when the first sound escaped my lips. I think it startled us both, shook us; it was a sound that wasn't like me to make. And then, like the opening of Pandora's box, very soon I was choking on many more sobs of my remorse.

"Rosalie, I'm sorry."

I glared up at my husband. _He_ was apologizing to _me_. An idiot if I've ever known one. Lovable, yes — but an idiot.

"Give me some credit, though," he said. "I know you better than anyone. I only... _accused_ you because I saw that getting you heated and defensive was bringing out more answers. It was making you talk to me, instead of trying to get me out of the room. I never, for an instant, blamed you for any of this. And neither should you. It's nobody's fault... and yet, it's _everybody's_ fault." He grimaced, bringing out the dimples I loved so much. "You just might have made one of the bigger mistakes in all of this, but you don't have to be afraid to tell me anything, babe. I'd never judge. You can show me every single beautiful _and_ disgusting part of you, and I will always love you. All of you."

Eyes stinging, I shook my head slowly, trying to clear it, trying to make sense of things. My impatience had created a dilemma that had the entire family on the line, that could kill half of that family — Emmett could not love me for that.

My lips curled into a sulk. Not liking it, Emmett swept his thumb over my lips. Did he see the disbelief on my face? The doubt, even?

"Rose." He smiled a little at me, despite how difficult it was to smile during a time like this. "After a half a century, you ought to know that I mean what I say, especially when it comes to you."

Again, I buried my face into his hard chest. He was serious, and I loved him for it while loathing what I'd done all the more. How could I have done something so despicable, intentional or not, to _him_ , if anybody? Emmett loved Edward — a lot more than I did. I would never want Edward hurt, let alone dead—(I squinted in painful remorse)—but now that it was a horrific possibility, would I be responsible for the pain of those left alive, too?

Would it be repugnant to wish for the comfort of my family right now? Would it be offensive to ask for forgiveness?

Suddenly, the back kitchen door slammed open. Jasper's familiar footsteps and scent had me heading for the stairs before I could process exactly what I planned on doing. Jasper only gave me one quick glance—or glare—as he grabbed the cell phone he must have left behind in his haste earlier, and went to leave again.

"Jasper, wait."

He paused, and locked eyes with me. For a minute, I could only stare at him. The dark, piercing glare was powerful, more menacing than before, like he found it insulting that I would dare try to speak with him after what I'd caused. But I did not show haughty self-assurance or superiority to him now, as I would have liked, as I would have naturally done. I knew I could not afford it. And I knew I did not deserve it.

"What do you want?" he commanded.

I said the first thing that came to my head. "Forgiveness."

"Forgiveness," he repeated with distaste. I could see absolution was not there. Not even close. "For _this_ , Rosalie? Who do you think I am? _Carlisle?_ "

I flinched, but I held my position.

"Jasper, please hear me out. My self-interest had something to do with it, but it was no more than what my family wanted, too. I'm not lying, Jasper. I thought, at the time, calling him was all I could do, that it was right."

His glare did not change, but he let me go on. It angered me that he was prepared for something that was trivial and of no significance. I had to remind myself that I could not hold it against him.

"Jasper, I am— I was—" The word 'wrong' rose to my lips, but I swallowed it back.

His head moved away from me. I saw him nod to himself. He thought his doubt in me was being proven.

My thoughts raged with fury at myself, mentally screaming, scolding. I shoved away my pride, which fought against me and the sheer terror of all this, of what I was to blame for. Jasper was my brother — I owed him. And even if I didn't want to, by God, I would force every apology and feeling up my throat until it rolled off my tongue with gooey sincerity.

My stomach heaved. I swallowed hard.

"No," I insisted when Jasper had turned to leave again. He looked back at me, confused now, as he tasted the new air. "I am sorry, Jasper." My voice was fierce, but genuine, and now it softened as I reluctantly let my weakness show. "Sorry I have done what I did, and...for other things, the ones that followed. There are parts of me that refuse to believe anything that is against what I already believe. I can be stubborn — we all know that. But it had never made so much a mess of things as it has done now. I had hoped..." I trailed off, struggling to find the right words. With all my lack of experience in this department, I was attempting and failing to make mere words of my feelings. Why was something so clear in your head so difficult to explain out loud?

Jasper's shoulders eased slightly and the corner of his lips curved up. At first, my heart sank. Then I realized that it didn't make my confession any harder. This smile wasn't mocking or superior, the way I had feared and assumed it would be. It was almost compassionate; almost, because it was very forced. Still, I could tell it was only the irrational portions of his emotions that he was trying to overcome; he wasn't pretending to be sincere.

"I know what you hoped, Rosalie," he said. His voice was hard, but, miraculously, fully forgiving. Somehow he understood, and he was apologizing in his own way, to me, for his behavior. It encouraged me to continue; comforted me that Jasper was indeed my brother in all the ways that counted.

"It was never supposed to turn out this way," I told him. "I was foolish in thinking I understood Edward enough to assume he would come home."

"No, you weren't foolish," he sighed. "You were desperate."

He was right, of course.

"Desperation makes one foolish," I realized quietly, my eyes now locked on the grains in the wooden floor. "I am sorry for that."

"There is nothing that can be done now," he murmured.

Jasper, Emmett — who had come to stand supportingly by my side — and I stood silently for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts.

There was something that still bothered me. Maybe it wasn't important, maybe it was, but I needed to know.

The connection between Edward and Bella baffled me. It seemed impossible that their love reached the level of mine and Emmett's, of Jasper's and Alice's. Bella was only human. What was so special about a human to a being so much more magnificent? It wasn't the same.

Though, clearly I was wrong. I still didn't understand how, but I had to be. Why else would Edward react this way? What else would put reason to his grim, isolated, inconsolable state these past months? And why else would Bella up and leave her father, her friends, her life, just to join a likely suicide mission? Surely she knew the dangers, the odds, and she didn't care. If it was Emmett, it would not have mattered to me, either. And Edward had...changed. Altered in the same, positive way we all did when we found our mates.

When I found Emmett he was human. I saw something in him that appealed to me, and though it wasn't immediately love, I realized that, if he hadn't been mauled by a bear, that if he had remained healthy and alive, that it could have turned into love given the chance.

After that reverie, there was only one question that I needed to ask.

"Jasper," I said before he left again. He would know the answer. He would have seen it, _felt_ it, better than anyone else had the ability to. "Bella — does she love him? Is it... _real_?"

Jasper paused mid-step, halfway out the door. He thought it over a second, guessing my questioning or deriving a sincere answer, I didn't know. Possibly both.

"Yes," he finally said. "She loves him. Their love is true."

And I knew he was right.

Bella loved Edward, not as an infatuated human who was unthinkingly throwing away her life, in love with the idea of love. And Edward loved her, not as a century-old vampire that had found something intriguing after all his years, a wish-fulfillment out of loneliness. Nor did they love each other in the same way teenage humans were obliged by their carefully selected hormones to love one another. Edward and Bella loved each other freely. They loved each other in their own sole, unique way, as only true mates could.

I suddenly felt I could see the pair in a whole new light — Bella especially.

The wretched feeling inside me doubled.

Bella and I, I feared, might never be compatible. We were too different to relate. I knew, however, that I would try to...accept her. _My sister_ , I tested out in thought. Yes, I could come to think of her as a sister in time. _Just please, please give us that time._

I decided to go back upstairs and lock myself away. There was nothing else I could do and nothing else I wanted to do. Emmett took my hand in his quickly, asking me what he could do for me.

"Give me a couple of hours to myself," I answered.

He didn't look happy, but he nodded. I felt bad knowing that since he had no way to help Edward, Alice, and Bella, that he wanted to help the people here, and neither Jasper nor I were allowing him.

"I'm sorry. I know you want to help me, but..."

"I know." He smiled as reassuringly as he could.

"Come get me when Carlisle and Esme get back."

We shared a look of mutual edginess, of discomfort. Which one of us would tell them? I knew, out of the two of us, which one it should be. But could I muster enough courage for that?

"Leave Carlisle and Esme to me."

Emmett and I stared at Jasper.

"I'll be back before they are," he said. A veil of gloom shadowed his face, and he left into the chilled, darkening forest.

I was grateful to him. Surely he was the right choice for the task, though a vile feeling of shame washed over me.

Frustrated with the feeling of being powerless and at fault, I rushed upstairs. I locked the door once I was safely behind it, inside the bedroom. My back pinned itself against it as I scanned the empty room with no idea what to do. Everything seemed pointless now. Everything, as Emmett had said, was falling apart. Inside and out.

I spotted the full-length mirror that I had bought Kate only the previous day, and went and stood before it to make a critical study of myself, pleading silently for answers. And I panicked, though I had already known, that my reflection could forever only show the exterior beauty and never that which laid beyond the skin. But did it matter? There was no reason that there was beauty to be seen there in me even if it could.

I choked on an unexpected sob, squeezing my eyes shut.

All in all, it was quite impossible to see an upside to any of this. Behind my eyelids there were unmovable pictures of the four faces who would no longer exist if this ended in tragedy. Edward, Bella, and Alice — and therefore Jasper — would all die. What were the odds that with one phone call I could destroy the most important thing to me next to Emmett: my family.

If only I had known then what I knew now.


	3. Esme

**.:Esme:.**

Carlisle and I strolled, hand-in-hand, along the pink-tinted forest at a relaxing pace. It was almost dark now, the sun just a faint memory along the horizon. As my gaze followed a bushel of somber — yet beautiful — wildflowers sprouting up above the white snow, Carlisle snapped his fingers.

"Flowers. That's what's missing in our home. You always have flowers."

I smiled, hoping my twinge of sadness could not be noticed. Although I had spent many consecutive hours occupying my time in the garden at our new house, I had been rather neglectful of the indoors. Usually filled with a variety of my plants, the house, now, was as lonely as I felt.

It had been months since I last heard from Edward, and the emptiness in his voice on the other end of the receiver, lying that he was alright, did not make that memory a pleasant one. Meanwhile, Rosalie and Emmett had been away on vacation in Europe for three months, checking in every so often. Alice had been running her own agenda, searching out answers that solved the mysteries of her past. I had been grateful when Jasper stayed home while Alice ventured off; I only saw him for a couple of hours each morning — before he went off to classes — and a few hours in the evening — before Carlisle got off work, and he and I retreated away together — but it had still been nice to have at least one of our children home where they belonged. I had missed them all so much, and I worried that my own sorrow was selfishly glooming our home, forcing them away to find peace. Jasper had constantly assured that that wasn't the case, but I could never be certain if he spoke the truth.

Of course, Emmett and Rosalie have been home for a little over a month now, and Alice had planned her return perfectly in time for the beginning of Cornell's spring break to be with Jasper. We had already planned to visit Tanya and her family, so here we all were in Alaska together. It was the first time in a very long time that we had nearly the whole family back together again, enjoying themselves. But even with the gradual returns of my children, the one I waited for never showed, and my loneliness never completely faded.

Carlisle, for his part, had been doing this for the past six weeks — wanting to brighten my mood by embellishing the house with homely things that he knew I'd enjoy. His thought warmed me more than the actual act.

"The house has been a little void of nature, hasn't it? I noticed, too," I told him. "I was going to pick up some vases that matched our living room set when I was out the other day, but I didn't get the chance."

"Well, then," he said, "I shall get one special for you."

True to his word, when the night had passed, daybreak just around the corner, we went by the little town just outside the acres of land the Denalis' owned, and Carlisle surprised me with a gorgeous beige and burgundy vase covered in intricate designs inspired by the locals here; it matched our family room in Ithaca perfectly. How ever he discovered it in such a short amount of time, I would never figure out.

Naturally, it was lovely all on its own, but the eight red roses already filling it certainly were a bonus.

I kissed his lips, thanking him for the wonderful kept promise. "But why eight roses?" I asked. Perhaps it was of no significance, but most came in a bundle of twelve; if he bought each flower separately, without buying enough to fill the vase up entirely, there must have been a hidden meaning. It would be very like my husband to attempt cleverness when being sweet.

Carlisle chuckled, seeing the playful suspicion I held. "It just so happened that these eight called to me specifically."

My eyebrows raised in curiosity and amusement.

"You see, this one," he nudged the largest rose in the vase with his pinky, "was the biggest, most intimidating of the entire bunch in that market, but its thorns were few in number. This one here was the tiniest they had and it was attached to this one with the sturdy stem and scarred petals." He laughed once. "Then there was the one that caught everyone's eye with its bold color and perfect shape, but beware of all the thorns — you see?" He arranged the flowers as he went, so I could see exactly what he was describing. A smile began to light my face as each new flower was introduced. "This one over here, the small container it was soaking in was knocked over twice by rowdy toddlers bumping into the flower rack — horrible luck that one had. So I picked this sharp, dependable rose — right here — to protect it..." He grinned when he came to the last two, which were crossed, their leaves wound together, their soft petals mashing. "These two might not have seemed like something special, sitting up at the top of the racks all alone. But look how they're tangled together; they are clearly something special to each other. And considering they were directly in front of my face but I only noticed them _after_ I picked out the others, I knew they had been sitting up there watching over them the whole time. It was only right that they joined the ones they cared about."

"Why, it's our family," I laughed when he finished (the sound, surprisingly, almost foreign to me). "It's all of us. _Together_." I sighed the last part in evident longing.

"Darling," Carlisle took my hands, bringing it to his lips and softly kissing it, "it will be like that again. Edward will come home — he always does."

He and I both knew that the last time Edward ran off alone it was for an entirely different reason. He sounded so confident, though.

"And Bella?"

His expression saddened. "Maybe one day she, too, will be back with us. She is Edward's. And Edward: hers. Even with Alice, the future is still a mystery full of opportunities." His other hand draped over mine against the vase. "Let these be your hope."

The look he gave me filled me with guilt. It must have been obvious I had lost most of my optimism regarding my family these past few months. I certainly hadn't been any help in easing his own sorrow. Carlisle had not been taking Edward's absence well, either. My poor husband had been working much longer hours to keep his mind occupied, and I noticed an inner struggle brewed in him. He was constantly questioning himself, his actions, his thoughts... It was the same when Edward left the first time, all those years ago. Yet, clearly Carlisle never lost his faith.

I smiled when I met the honey gaze of the man I so adored. It had been nearly half a year since I felt this content in a moment of happiness. "Thank you, Carlisle. You are wonderful."

We continued our way back to our vacation home while I absorbed optimism from each and every rose in the vase. My eyes hovered over the 'sharp, dependable' rose; it was leaning in the opposite direction from all the others. Inconspicuously, I tilted the vase just enough to have that one slide over to the rest.

And then, quietly, I sighed, thinking about how I actually missed Edward so much that I even missed him in my thoughts. One's mind could be the loneliest and most dangerous of all places, and I was so used to Edward being in there with me, as if protecting me from my own trivial fears. Unknowingly, I might have fallen dependent on him for that. When he saw me worried over something or impatiently waiting for Carlisle's shift at the hospital to end, he would come see me, keep me company, or play a lovely piece on the piano. The others wished to retain their thoughts from Edward as much as possible and Edward never pried; I, however, had welcomed his silent presence since the early days, when my human years were fresh enough to haunt me and Edward never left me alone to wander that darkness in my own head. Because I had allowed him so easily from the start to keep me from the depths of my thoughts, that connection was something only the two of us shared, and, _oh_ , how I missed it. Nowadays, I caught myself thinking to him, only to become embarrassed, and a tad shame-faced, when I realized that, even when everyone else was home, it was not like before, that it was not a complete family in that house, that my thoughts were not being heard.

I was grateful to Carlisle for realizing what I needed: a symbol to draw strength from in a time that was hard on us all. I was a parent, a mother, and a wife, and I needed to act like it. It was unfair to my family if I allowed myself to fall too far into pining over Edward. This was not the first time I realized this, of course, and I had tried to laugh with Emmett, tried to shop with Alice, tried to play chess with Jasper, and tried to converse with Rosalie. I was not unaware of how terribly I did, but I had put in great effort. It had helped the first few days Emmett and Rose returned home to us, and Alice. I had been so excited and happy to see them that it was effortless to be myself again. But then it always gradually fell back apart, because there was always a piece of my family I knew was not being fixed.

My youngest son was in a tight spot. Again. Oh, could not one thing go easily for him? Was he doomed to suffer? Love came so simply for the rest of us, and Edward's been the odd man out for far too long, left alone in the shadows of three sets of couples. And then, when he finally found what he had been unwittingly searching for, the experience was paved with struggles I wished he never had to face. Presently, look at what it has done to my son: he was alone again, and this time it was much worse. He lost something. He mourned. He lived with a part of him missing. I had wished for so much more for Edward than this.

I still did.

Carlisle was right - I had to have hope. Edward would come home one day, as he's done before, and we would be here for him. And I would never let him go again. This...moping does him no good. Even if I could sympathize, I knew he would not heal this way. There had to be something I could do for him, as his mother, as someone who loved him. Yes, I would think of something, so that when he returned I'd be ready to help him. Maybe even persuade him to return to Bella. Even if he must go without us — a saddening thought — at least they would be together, happy.

I smiled.

A new light burned inside me as the house came into view. It made me very glad to have arrived, as my anticipation to see my other four children grew.

Fingers laced tight, Carlisle and I strode up the cobbled path. Below us, a mist was beginning to form, swiftly climbing the route we had just taken, as if ominously following us up to the house. The Denali household was dark. Despite that the night (though it was early morning) had no effect on our sight, lights were usually turned on to give a homey feeling, even if just the porch light.

Not today.

The sight of it was eerie and vaguely disquieting.

We climbed the porch steps to the front door. Almost immediately, it swung inward, revealing a strained Jasper.

"Carlisle. Esme." He nodded, holding the door open for us.

We politely thanked him as we entered, but there was a discomforting bloom in the air. Emmett and Rosalie were in what I assumed was Kate's room, as unmoving and quiet as deer in a field who have just heard a noise and were tensely waiting for another sign of danger. As their mother, their uneasy nature melted into me.

_What's happened?_

"Something's happened," stated Jasper, his words a form of an echo of my thoughts. A subconscious move to gain comfort, my body pressed into Carlisle, as if making sure we were connected and never parting. It was a safe feeling.

Jasper held his hand out toward the living room. Carlisle and I obliged his wish to move into the other room.

"Is everything alright?" I asked hesitantly.

Instead of getting an answer, I watched Jasper clench his hand and immediately loosen it when he heard his cell phone crack. He kept his eyes on the mahogany coffee table as he sat on the single-seat sofa. For us, he gestured to the couch next to him.

I looked up at Carlisle with eyes glinting with worry, hugging the vase that held my family of roses — and my hope — closer to me. He only glanced back at me for a quick moment, touching my cheek with his fingers, before tugging me along to the couch. We took a seat perched on the edge.

Jasper said nothing. His eye color was already in the darker shades of gold, which was odd since I was aware he and Emmett had gone hunting recently.

"Jasper, what's wrong?" Carlisle asked, calm and open-minded.

"There really isn't any time for me to facilitate a way to say this to lessen its effect," Jasper finally said, pinching the bridge of his nose, then sliding his fingers across his brow with a heavy sigh. His hand dropped when he lifted his head and locked his eyes on us. "I am just going to tell you what you need to know."

"We understand," Carlisle assured. "Please don't trouble yourself just to spare our reactions."

Carlisle's words seemed to have a strange effect on our newest son. Our reactions seemed to be precisely what he was fearing, and I could not understand if that was the only thing that was bothering him or if the story itself was what upset him. If my kids had merely gotten themselves into a bit of trouble, it wouldn't be the first time they hesitated to confess.

Jasper smiled slightly, but it was incredibly forced, and behind it lurked a shadow of dread. Again, his anxiety ignited mine. Whatever he had to tell us, it was not like those other mishaps. This was serious. His smile vanished with another heavy sigh, and I wondered what news could possibly weigh him down like this? Jasper was usually so admiringly in control of his emotions.

Finally, he told us.

"Alice is in Forks. She had a vision the other day of Bella." Carlisle and I didn't move, though the name of Edward's love surprised us both, as did Alice's current location. My hands pressed tighter against the vase that was propped on my knees. Jasper continued without pause. "It was very sudden, the vision. Alice saw Bella jump off a cliff into the ocean—" How was it possible my already still heart could become still and cold again? "—and, from what Alice saw, she did not resurface."

I gasped and my hand flew to hover an inch over my mouth.

Bella? Our Bella? What would drive her to... Only a great loss would bring a young woman to that end. The stitched tear in my heart throbbed, tingling with remembrance of my lost baby, and what fate it had led me to. Was it possible Bella had not taken to our leaving the way Edward had meant for her to? No. No! Edward's sacrifice... Edward's suffering could not be for nothing! And Bella, so young, so lovely and kind—

"Wait." Jasper raised his hand out to me, to us. "Alice called here. Bella is...alive."

I was too relieved at this to attempt to figure out if there was a reason he rephrased at the last moment, for it sounded like he was going to say that Bella was _safe_.

"Somehow Alice didn't catch that someone had saved her. However...the damage was already done."

And my relief was short-lived.

"The damage?" Carlisle wondered. He looked around the room, his senses stretching throughout the house and the perimeter of the land, searching. "Where is Alice now, then?"

"She stayed in Forks for a couple of days..."

From the way tense lines traced Jasper's expression, the way he spoke carefully now, hesitantly, I sensed that we were getting closer to the real problem. By Jasper's uncharacteristic demeanor, it was something far worse than I imagined.

Beside me, Carlisle shifted just an inch closer to me; closer to Jasper, too. A subconscious move to whatever he was speculating? I looked at his face to see, but it was still a mask of composure, of patience.

"And what about Edward?" he asked.

The thought of my broken son hearing about this somewhere, somewhere where he was alone and inconsolable, tore at me inside. Surely, they would not have told him about this yet.

Jasper looked at the ground, then at each of us separately. He took too long to respond.

"What of Edward?" I demanded immediately, more firmly than I intended.

"This is harder than I was planning on it being," Jasper groaned to himself, almost inaudible. Then at regular volume, he said, "See, he was informed of what happened..."

Agony pinched at my heart.

"I am not sure that was the best idea," Carlisle said, his calm slipping at the end, revealing a tinge of dread. I absorbed it and joined him in the emotion.

"Why would you call him?" I asked Jasper. What an awful thing to hear — that the one you loved had attempted suicide, presumably because they could not live without you, deeming your whole hopes for them meaningless.

"It wasn't me..." A strange expression crossed Jasper's face, like he suddenly didn't know where his allegiance should lie.

"I did it," came a low response from the stairs.

We turned, and I could only stare at my daughter for a minute.

"I called him until he picked up," Rosalie continued. Her face scrunched in regret. "I told him what Alice saw."

"Why would you tell him that over the _phone_ , Rosalie?" I shut my eyes as I turned away from her, pressing my face into Carlisle's strong shoulder.

"I don't— I—," she stammered, shame flooding her voice.

"Why?" Carlisle insisted steadily.

"I wanted him to come home. I thought he would if I told him. But I had no idea what he would do! I just— I wouldn't have done it if I had known..." I heard her take a deep, pained breath. "That hardly excuses me of anything I've done," she murmured. "I am truly sorry."

The fervor of remorse was thick in her voice, and that was rare. It held my attention.

"Alice tried calling him back," Emmett said hurriedly, having followed Rosalie out of the bedroom, "to tell him the truth, but he dumped his phone somewhere in Rio."

Pain filtered into the room through the eyes of my children, while Emmett's words stunned me silent. My eyes grew wide, mouth parting slightly, as I tried to comprehend.

_Edward still believed Bella to be dead?_

A sound escaped Carlisle that I didn't recognize. Yet, his voice was collected, if not a little quiet, when he spoke. "Edward doesn't know Bella is alive?" he asked them.

"Um..." Emmett started, looking at Jasper.

"Well, where is he then?" I demanded to know. "Why would he leave his phone? We must find him somehow and tell him the truth. The poor dear must be awfully depressed."

"It's too late for us to reach Edward now," Emmett muttered so low I barely caught it. He looked angry. As with Rosalie and Jasper, Emmett looked the opposite of himself.

"What do you mean?" Carlisle and I asked together, our tones different — mine was commanding, while his was cautious. When I looked at him, I saw that there was something he was fearing he already knew.

Rosalie's words reeled again in my mind. I noted her tone. Pinned the nervousness that was in her eyes when she pleaded with us through her gaze that she never meant any harm. She wouldn't have told him if she had known... Known _what_?

 _But I had no idea what he would do_ , she had said.

My intuition was triggered. I blinked, my eyes quickly pointing out Rosalie, Emmett, then Jasper. All three were looking in different directions, all away from where Carlisle and I sat. Panicked, my head swung to see my husband again, hoping he'd have the answers I was failing to catch on to.

"Edward believed me too quickly," Rosalie said. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. She seemed unable to go on. Jasper took over.

"We can't get a hold of him anymore. It's too late. He's headed out of the country."

"Leaving the country? Then he is coming home, right? Or to Forks." Forks made more sense than home did, I reasoned. "We could meet him—"

Jasper grimaced. "He's headed for Italy."

Next to me, Carlisle stiffened, stopped breathing. This reaction frightened me further. He never _reacted_. I frantically searched for the meaning Italy presented. Italy. What was in Italy? The Volturi were. But what good would the Volturi ever serve Edward?

I didn't understand precisely why, by my immortal body felt weaker, as if impossibly starting to fail. I felt the sense of emergency reverberating through the room.

"Edward...thinks Bella is dead?" Carlisle asked again, carefully, almost as if he were denying it now.

Three heads slowly, simultaneously, turned to him. I would have too, but I was afraid of what I would see. Nothing made sense in my puzzled mind, but that did not overwrite the fact that I knew my son needed help.

"Yes," Jasper reluctantly answered.

"He doesn't know she was saved, that Alice was wrong?"

"No."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Carlisle lean forward, his gaze intense on Jasper, as if pleading he understand what he was about to say. "Edward will not live without her."

Jasper stared back for a moment. Slowly, he shook his head. A look of grief came over him. "I'm sorry," he said. "Alice saw Edward going to the Volturi—" Jasper's eyes landed on me, sympathetic, prepared "—and asking for death."

At first, I could do nothing. The mental image produced, and the realization that struck, was inexpressible. I was consumed with a bitter, deathly chill. I heard, rather than saw, my vase crash to the floor, and I struggled to keep my mind working. I clamped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming.

My focus was lost, but I tried to pay attention to what they were saying now, though they sounded distant, far away and out of reach. When Carlisle spoke, desperation had replaced his calm.

"We must stop him! When did he leave for Italy?"

"Carlisle, it was yesterday. It's too late for any of us to reach him."

"No, there has to be a way. Aro. Aro would not grant him that—he'll see it as too much of a waste."

Hearing my husband fight to find arguments that would set the world back on its axis was heartbreaking, because there was always an argument that countered his out.

I listened to Jasper numbly, struggling to keep up.

Alice saw... Edward was planning... The Volturi would... Alice and Bella were...

"Carlisle," Jasper whispered, his tone final, "Alice told me to prepare you. The odds aren't good."

When Carlisle went speechless, when it was definite he was defeated, I shattered.

"Oh no!" I moaned into my hands. "This can't— He can't—!"

It was too horrible. Impossible. _Please!_ A small sound slipped from my lips; a sound of pain.

And then the screaming began.

**OoOoOoO**

A creeping numbness curled itself around me, ready to plunge me into a dark and horrifying nightmare, an unspeakable horror. But I resisted.

Or I tried to.

There was no morning sun today. Or rather no sun could be seen. The sky itself was invisible. Peering out the window of Tanya's bedroom, I could see, even with my keen sight, nothing but the dull whiteness of the snow-covered forest matching the blanket of clouds. There was no color, no light, no life. It was blank, as if the rest of the universe vanished. Gripping the edge of the windowsill with my fingers, I leaned out as far as I could. Still, nothing appeared. Just harsh images conjured up from my fears.

As much as I did try to resist, it was no use.

It had been 1917 when Carlisle was at the peak of his loneliness. His depression, as he had told me, was becoming severe. Eight months later, he had encountered Edward — the young man who lifted Carlisle out of his despair. Only a couple years further, and Edward was the boy who filled my aching heart when my darling newborn child had been lost — he had lifted me out of _my_ despair. He had appeared in our lives the exact moment he was needed, fitting into the exact roles that needed filling, like an angel, a prayer answered, a miracle. And we — Carlisle and I — had given Edward what he needed: parents.

Perhaps it was mere coincidence, but I couldn't say I was convinced.

It all happened so effortlessly, so naturally. I could try to describe the pride and love that burst through every fiber of my being the first time he ever addressed me as his 'mother', but it would do the moment no justice. I always secretly felt we were all designed for each other, and that does not exclude the others. The Cullen family was meant to piece together, no matter how long it took, no matter what obstacles jumped in the way.

As I stared with aching eyes up into the gray sky, the face of the handsome, brilliant young man who I took in as my first (immortal) son appeared wherever I looked, with his unique copper hair and trademark lopsided smile shining familiar in my memory. Although he was smiling in the image my mind created, I knew that, in the picture, he was alone, searching for the meaning of his existence with no hope of ever finding it.

Then the picture transformed into an Edward that positively glowed with new-found meaning and strength, beaming with love for his dearest Bella. The sight of it, though an illusion, would have brought me joy if it was not followed by an Edward with shadowed, coal eyes seeping with the cold sorrow of true love lost. And when I thought he could get no worse, the shadows deepened, the planes of his face wrinkled with a torment no words could describe, and he grimaced, appearing to be howling in agony, begging to be ripped to pieces to join Bella in death because his suffering he could take no more.

My breath hitched. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head sharply to dispose of the images. I refused to see again my son crack to pieces by the hands of a vampire in a black robe, with eyes as red as fresh blood.

Invisible tears brimmed my eyes as I took one last look into the bleak earth, glad Edward's face was not there anymore. It would come back, though, I knew, so I leaned back into the heated room, out of the chilled air. After shutting the window, I pressed my back into it and slid to the ground, hugging my knees to myself when I landed.

What would life be like? How would we go on if this ended tragically?

"Esme?"

Carlisle's quiet voice startled me, though I remained frozen and unmoving. His distinct footsteps, ones that, to make matters worse, so much resembled those of Edward, tapped across the floor until he was standing over me. His hand brushed down my hair as he knelt in front of me so we were face-to-face. I blinked in response, focusing on him. He had his controlled, cool mask on, but as I looked at him and our eyes met, his expression softened, revealing the gashes of torment that were truly scarring him.

He bent, scooping me up in his arms, and sat down in the white leather love-seat next to the fireplace, with me in his lap.

"Don't cry. It's going to be okay." His voice was soothing, as it always was. His breath was cool and comforting against my skin. His arms around me were strong. His hand moved to the nape of my neck, and warm fingers gently burrowed beneath my hair, combing caramel waves, hoping to sweep away my despair.

How I admired Carlisle for all his strength of mind and body. His early history had shown him no mercy. He had struggled with vampire life, clinging to his humanity, because only Carlisle would believe he still had it as a naturally damned creature. He had died trying to rescue his town from a band of true monsters, while sparing the people who were being wrongfully accused. His reward? After a life spent thinking of and protecting the innocent, he had been reborn as a creature who fed off them. Ironic and cruel?

Or was it a destiny?

His self-control was unmatched. His good-hearted will turned a horrific transformation into a miraculous one. He had saved so many lives that ordinarily would not have been spared if he were A) not around, and B) not a vampire. And our family would not have found each other without him. In all his centuries of lonely struggle, the heavens had finally given him a family, people who loved him, who looked up to him, who joined him in his quest of sustaining our humanity.

And Edward had been the very first.

Before I had arrived in his life, before the others, it was Edward. When I had first entered the family I could see their closeness, though subtle at the time and not as powerful as it was today, and I had been afraid to intrude. I had felt incredibly lucky when I realize I belonged with them; when they opened their arms, let me in their circle, and I fit. But Carlisle and Edward had always been a unique pairing. The two were so much the same men, even when disagreeing. Father and son. And I was constantly filled with pride whenever I watched them together.

My throat tightened and I wound my arms around Carlisle's neck, pressing my lips against his.

_My dear Carlisle, not even your darkest of imaginings could invoke this twisted fate for our son, for your best friend._

For him, I knew, that despite how strong he managed right now, if Edward ended up truly lost there would be nothing left but a shadow of the man I loved.

I started, and began to sob. Carlisle pulled his mouth away and held me tightly, until the dry weeping stopped. I leaned into him as if I was weak and dying, rather than the strong immortal that I was.

"Esme...?"

I understood he was questioning how I was holding up — surely the answer was obvious.

"I cannot bear it, Carlisle," I said anyway, miserable. "I cannot."

"Esme," he said again, "we have lived contentedly for almost a century together, and for the majority of that time there have always been seven of us. By the end of this, there will _still_ be seven of us — if not, eight."

"It isn't very much likely, though, is it?" I whispered. "Even if Alice assured the Volturi will not grant him...what he wants, they will not tolerate what he has planned." I whimpered at the thought — at _that_ thought and the one in my son's head, the one that has him imagining and wishing his own destruction. I had been there myself, long ago.

There was so much heartbreak, and that was without thinking of what might become of my other brave, beautiful children.

Bella was the only one able to save my son now. If the circumstances were not so terrible, I would find warmth in the strength of the love she possessed for Edward, her Edward. Willingly sacrificing her precious life and braving the dangers of Italy to save him, though we had left her months ago, was the true meaning of love. They were destined to belong to the other, and this dark new twist to the classic tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_ was proof of such. But it held so much pain to think that it was, indeed, mimicking a tale of tragedy. It wasn't right to have Bella in the heart of Volterra. She was too vulnerable there, and whether she failed or succeeded in her mission, if she was caught, there would be deadly consequences. She would not survive. What would happen to Charlie, to her mother if she never returned home? A stinging pain shot through the center of my chest. I had a very good understanding of the sorrow it would result in, because she was my daughter, too. I loved her dearly.

Then there was Alice — small, bright, happy-go-lucky Alice, who I had simply adored the moment I had met her, despite how startled I was by her and Jasper's sudden, intimidating arrival. She had done so much good for this family, possibly ending with this last act of love. In this, she had put her and Jasper's lives on the line. I wondered if Jasper could hold it against her. If he was in her place, I had no doubt that he would have done everything he could for Edward, too. But he was not in her place. He was here; a strong, devoted warrior who was powerless and lost in the dark. I had to go see him. He must need so much comforting right now, worried for his mate.

Alice and Jasper... I loved them both so much, and I would lose them.

They would all be lost.

They did not deserve this!

Carlisle's eyes fixed steadily on me, holding my gaze. "Alice and Bella - they will make it in time. They will bring Edward, and themselves, home to us."

"Yes, I know," I said, doubt strong in my voice. It came out sarcastic, I noticed. But I could not stop. "Luck will be on their side. Love will. God. Nothing can impede them in their race. They will conquer above all. It is what I _should_ believe, right?"

"It's what you usually do." He looked at me, sad. "It's always been your nature to—"

"There is no way to know this time, Carlisle!"

My hysteria was so sudden, both of us froze, eyes still locked on the others. It would not be hard to see the crazed spark in my eyes, nor the extreme fear of loss there that ignited it. The last thing I wanted to do was to distress my husband more than he was. Yet, he had to see... "There is a fine line between optimism and absurdity," I whispered.

"And believing what we do does not cross it," he said, his face firming as he leaned closer to me. "We have all heard the tales of justice and love. Some imagined, some supposedly true, and almost invariably there is some mention of rising above all odds, even when feeling haunted by failure, of having a mental atmosphere that fills one with nothing but foreboding, some sense of menace."

"Such stories give the heroes much more power than we have," I countered quietly. Therefore fairytales do not apply here.

A tiny cry freed from my throat as I realized Carlisle was right, again. My faith in love has diminished. I remembered fondly the times Carlisle and my children teased me of being a 'hopeless romantic', not only believing in the truest of loves but also the strength love possessed. The power one had when they fought for someone they cared about.

Where had that Esme gone?

"It may seem that way." Carlisle paused. "But I don't believe it. Not for an instant. Our power is in _them_ — in Alice, Bella, and especially in Edward. If they need knowledge, persuasion, strategy to get out alive — our teachings are in them. If they need motivation, the will — we are here for them to think of. They draw their strength from us just as much as from themselves. They persist knowing there is a whole family waiting for them, people who love them deeply, people they love in return, and will persevere for. And we've given that to them. That was in our power. We are not helpless in this — we have merely already done our part. Now we must have faith in them. All those stories, Esme... They are not ones about magic and superpowers; they are stories of strength, courage, and faith. Above all else, one must _believe_."

"You make that sound so easy, Carlisle." I sighed, my face distorting into shame that I was incapable of living up to Carlisle's expectation, or of believing in my own children. Even if there was a chance a miracle could occur, the fear in me kept me buckled down, as if there were heavy chains clamped to my heart. What he was saying sounded so right, yet utterly impossible. "If Alice and Bella do not make it in time... Oh, Carlisle, if they _do_ and the Volturi destroy them anyway, half of this family will be gone. You know Jasper will leave us—" A sob strangled me.

"Sshh." Carlisle caressed the back of my head and gently pushed me against him. I buried my face in his neck. "Do not think like that, my love. It is the worst one can do during such dim circumstances."

I fought to control my emotions and lifted my head back up. "Do you think if we contact them somehow before...and explain... Is there any chance the Volturi might just stop him, but let him go?" My words flowed fast out of my mouth, in raw desperation. The thought of losing Edward, of risking the others, stabbed like poisonous thorns along my nerve endings, through my every bone. Carlisle could see this, could feel this — our emotions were mutual.

But, painfully, he shook his head.

"No," he answered.

At least he was being honest.

"Okay. I knew that." My voice cracked. My heart became even heavier.

What was happening to us? Whatever had yet to fall apart before was doing so now. I was helpless, worthless. There seemed nothing I could do for my children or my husband, and I couldn't bear to go over the events again. I did not want to believe any of it. But ignoring it was as inexcusable as it was impossible. My family was on the brink of being destroyed, and I could do _nothing_. Even for Emmett and Rosalie, who were both somewhere in the house — one restless and frustrated; the other shattered and ashamed — I was failing at taking care of them. And even knowing that, I couldn't find the power to move.

I must have been a horrible mother to have allowed my family, whom I loved with my whole heart and being, to fall this far, to sink this deep. There was no excuse for this.

Carlisle's hand slipped under my chin and lifted my face so I would look at him. His expression was serious. "Esme, do not blame yourself for this."

My lips trembled. I hated how well he knew me.

"The fault for this lies in nobody," he said. "It has been an unlucky stack of odds is all. Even if we could have foreseen it all, there was only so much we could do — Alice is proof of that. We can only do the best we can with what life gives us. We must leave Alice and Bella - and Edward - to do their best there. And we must do our best here. We have to believe in them, love. You are the one who has taught me this. You have always held the most faith of anybody I have known, but it has been recently buried. You must find it again." He pressed his forehead against mine. "Esme..."

"I know," I sobbed softly.

"Do you?" He leaned back. "It hurts to see you like this; to see all of you like this, even the ones I can't physically see." His eyes clouded with dejection.

My breath caught in my throat. I swallowed a parade of sobs that had begun to march their way out when seeing an angel's face consumed by unhappiness. Would this day end in the robbing of the angel's family, one he had spent centuries struggling to find, though believing he would never gain? Would it end in Rosalie's permanent isolation in her shame? Would it end in Jasper's broken heart, with a resolve to follow footsteps to relief? Would this day end on nothing but fear?

No. How could I allow that? Of course there had to be hope somewhere there. I just had to look past the doubt. Carlisle deserved that. My family deserved that.

My eyes wandered off Carlisle's face for a moment to look out the window; but, my gaze never made it that far. It stuck on the speck of color reflecting in the glass. I focused on it and was surprised to see roses. Eight of them. They were resting on the dresser by the door, in a new vase, a smaller one. Some were bent and wilted from their time on the ground — I felt a pang of guilt when I remembered I had trampled over some when I retreated to the bedroom — but they were all there, worn yet still in one piece, still together.

I stared at them for a second longer, knowing that Carlisle must have gathered them again. When I looked back at my husband, he was watching me carefully.

"Have you found it?" he asked, his voice soft and gentle. It saddened me that it sounded tired also, though he outwardly appeared the strongest of us all.

I laid my head against him, but didn't answer. I pictured my beloved family instead, and all I adored about them. Their strengths, their weaknesses, everything.

Emmett. Rosalie. Jasper. Alice. Bella.

Carlisle. Edward...

 _Hope_. I closed my eyes, searching.

Carlisle must have been aware of my pursuit; he rested his head lightly against me, his cheek pressing into my hair, letting a tranquil silence fill the room. It helped me focus on my thoughts.

I attempted hope, but the best my mind could uncover was knowing that for only Edward the odds weren't good — not for Bella, not for Alice, therefore not for Jasper, either. Just Edward. That was hopeful, wasn't it? So was the best we could wish for, then, was that Alice would see she and Bella would be unable to reach Edward in time, and that they'd then come back home safely? Are the only two cases available that either all four perish or only Edward?

I refused to accept either. One was clearly less destructive, less painful with fewer losses, but it was enough to just about kill me.

There had to be more faith in me. A flame that burned with the hope that all would be spared. Maybe it would take a little more time to discover, but it had to be there. Because Carlisle and I, we would never be the same again if we ended up losing Edward.

A great sorrow swept over me.

Edward ceasing to be: an unspeakable horror.

The long fill of silence continued. Although grasping at faith, I failed to evade that specific nightmare. And as that dreadful image repeated in my head, Carlisle's breaths started to quiver. With a stab of realization, I suddenly knew that there was one image that my husband, too, could not completely escape.

Breaking the silence, I asked in a soft, broken whisper, "What would we do without our son?"

Carlisle pulled me closer. "Pray we never find out."


	4. Jasper

**.:Jasper:.**

I felt utterly, irretrievably alone, and for the hundredth time since I had last spoken with Alice, I felt the queasy fluttering of reservations. An odd kind of inner darkness had settled on my shoulders. It was heavy. It was familiar. There was a sense of it doubling in pressure, tripling with every tick of the clock. Worse, still, the entire house was cloaked in it.

The Denali home sat at the bottom of a small hill, built on the acres of land that belonged to them, surrounded by trees that have turned white with the snow. The house — not a house so much as a mansion — was quite modern in its aesthetic, seeming to fit better in an urban county rather than the rural woods, isolated from the rest of Alaska. There was so much in their home, so much that was unique to them, and we could easily find activities to occupy our time when on vacation here. But today the house held little life.

Blinking, I tried to comprehend exactly what had altered around me.

I sat on the sleek black couch in the long living room with my elbows leaning on my knees, my fingers laced. The tiny silver phone resting silently on the coffee table seemed to have my complete attention — I couldn't take my eyes off of it, or my thoughts. I wished and wished for it to ring. And I wished and wished that it would be Alice.

Or perhaps that I would simply wake up and have this nightmare be gone.

Absently, I ran my fingers across my arm. A trail of crescent-shaped dents followed.

For years I'd known Hell. From the war-torn cities of the Civil War, to the excruciating scorch of my transformation; from the bloody bodies of my innocent prey, to my ravaging newborn "allies" and "enemies" — all have left scars on me, inside and out. The tips of my fingers continued to trace the evidence of my past, until they reached my other hand and hovered over the iron hoop on my ring finger, representing the love I shared with a significant other and that I was bound to her forever.

There were no scars from the days after I'd found Alice. She was an angel from the sweetest place in Heaven. All she had to do was smile and hold out her hand, and I was hooked for the rest of eternity. My only regret was making her wait for me as long as she had. I hated that she had had to spend her firstborn years of immortality alone. It was a miracle that somehow she had managed to see me in her future before I was consciously determined to leave Maria. If Peter and Charlotte hadn't decided to come back for me, the future might have been horrifically different. I was grateful toward my old friends for being the catalyst to get me out of the warring southland, ultimately letting me focus on escaping my depression and discovering the bubbly, beautiful woman who was mysteriously waiting for me for years in Philadelphia. The moment I had taken her hand in mine, I knew that I would not let it go. The tiny beauty and I were meant to be a pair. Eternally one.

Presently, however, there was a gap between Alice and me, and it was impossible, now, to close the distance.

To think that I had a limit of what I could do for her. Sickening. Inexcusable. Alice held my everlasting love, so how did I let this come about? Why was I allowing our future to be risked? Like the first moment I had heard of Carlisle's family — no, his coven, as I believed at the time — I was wary. Alice had assured many times that my worry was unnecessary, but that never stopped me. A vampire coven with so many was only known in the south and in Italy; both for reasons that involved nothing close to love. No matter what Alice had seen, I had insisted there were risks involved in belonging to a coven of such size.

And indeed there was. Just, not for the reasons I had presumed.

As Alice had predicted, the coven _was_ a family. They had their ups, they had their downs, they supported each other, and, miraculous to me, they _cared_ about each other. The strength of their feelings was above and beyond anything I'd encountered outside of mating vampires. Carlisle's and Edward's relationship especially was unbelievably strong, and it interested me simply for the fact that the comparison between Maria and me was significantly different. Even Edward and Rosalie, who, from what I could tell at the time, despised the other and then some, had a tighter relationship than I'd ever known. If it hadn't been for the protectiveness I felt coming off Edward toward all three of his family members when he came home with Emmett and found two strange vampires standing opposite of them, and the relief from Rosalie that Emmett _and_ Edward were home, I wouldn't have guessed they cared at all for one another and simply tolerated the other's company. But I realized quite quickly what Alice had meant.

As I became a part of this family, I learned much, and I realized that various levels of love had weaved everyone together. There were no exceptions. And soon I, too, was added to that web.

Trust, devotion, and affection — the things I had assumed were absent in these vampires and, therefore, made joining such a coven risky to Alice and me. Little did I know, it was having these traits that made it dangerous to be involved.

As impossible as I had deemed it, we ended up belonging to a family, and as a result, their troubles were our troubles. We'd do anything to help them. Anything.

_Even sacrificing ourselves with the possibility of leaving the other behind in order to protect them_ , I internally sighed.

_Fear_. The four members of my family left behind, scattered around me, were suffocating in it.

As if they knew anything about fear!

_I_ was the master of emotions.

I perceived them, I felt them, I controlled them. Every emotion, every facet and nuance of feeling was infused through my being. I understood their nature. The irrationality, as well as the power that they held. Good or bad, they directed the paths people took. Thoughts, choices, rules - some were created, but all were acted upon, by emotion. There was no ebb of it that I had not felt before. But this particular feeling of despair I had never experienced in such magnitude. It was undoubtedly, surprisingly, something new to me and, if I were human, I knew I would not have survived the strength of sorrow that had swallowed five immortals.

There was simply no way that I could still be sane anymore.

After over a century of learning and becoming one with the unseen, uncontrollable power that resided in human and vampire natures alike, I had finally edged myself into insanity. There was no other way to describe the desolate, unwavering, all-consuming uneasiness that clogged my mind. Simple human sadness was nothing close to the intensity of a vampire's; naturally, an immortal had no limit to how much he could suffer. It was how his tormented mind dealt with it that was another matter, and, normally, I managed just fine. Years of practice aided me. So, I _should_ be used to feelings being alive in me, as if they were more than just some emotion, but my whole soul.

Apparently, though, it was quite impossible to be accustomed to passions this severe. I supposed it made sense that I could not become numb to it; I was worrying so much over Alice, and thinking of Alice ultimately had me thinking of all the wonders and happinesses she's brought me. A family that I would die to protect was one of those gifts, and at the moment that family was all I had, and they were deeply hurting.

Again, I struggled to focus on my surroundings.

Rosalie... She was bound and gagged by her remorse. Forgiving her was all I could do for her. When she came to me, asking for understanding, I had suspected absolute self-pity. I had expected her to be confident and resolute in her excuses. I had been prepared to extinguish an ego-wounded Rosalie and not give a damn.

But so was not the case.

She had come to me and owned up to what she had done, sincerely apologetic that her reasons were, indeed, only for this family. It was as close as she'd ever come to apologizing on her own, admitting a fault, or anything of the sort. The way she had said it, the way she had _felt_ , with not even a trace of deceit or affectation for having the courage to come forward and confess, I knew that it was true. She had held her position beside Emmett silently. When I had looked at her, she did not sneer at me or turn away. She looked right back; and for a moment I had seen myself reflected in her eyes — pain, terror, guilt. All the emotions in me were mirrored in her. Deep under my anger and fear, I knew family meant a lot to Rosalie, for she had lost it all from her human life. I should have had the sense to remember that no matter what disagreements she had with any of us, nothing would weaken her loyalty or her love.

Again, I felt the anger; this time directed at myself. Accusing her was never what I meant to do. Did we all not make choices we'd like to take back?

I, for one, should have gone with Alice to Forks whether I agreed with interfering with Bella's life or not, but I'd passed up the opportunity. I had not chosen the right option, just as Rosalie had not chosen hers, or Edward his, or Bella hers, or Carlisle his — a decision that I did not know of, but had felt him debating against himself for months; something about Edward's departure, I assumed — or anybody, for that matter. And we were all now living with the consequences.

It helped, I think, that Rosalie had eased the tension I had with her when she did. Carlisle and Esme had still needed to be informed of what was going on; a task I'd been fated with. There was so much stress already, not including that, and I was glad to be able to consider Rosalie on my side again.

I remembered coming home after my run alone through the woods. I had entered the house with a plan. _Consider the matter with care and logic_ , I had reminded myself. From my plethora of experience, I knew it usually helped to state the situation clearly. When I finally heard my endlessly devoted parents, my stomach free-fell. I had taken a deep breath to clear my head so that I could do what I needed to.

All my mental preparation was useless, in the end. I would have failed if I had deliberately tried to be less tactful. Not only did explaining things drag out to the point where Rosalie, Emmett, and I were sinking into shameful silence, but the emotions that were already bubbling up, and the ones that, soon after, erupted, had me doubling over in acute inner agony. There was so much pain there when realization struck this kind couple with little delicacy.

Carlisle had risen to his feet, knocking a tidal wave of panic through me. His mind reeled with ideas. Blocking off the shock and pain with the need to fix the problem, with the need to save lives; that was what focused Carlisle's mind in terrible situations. He fought for anything that could be done to save his son, but I extinguished all he offered. Bella and my Alice were his only hope.

But it was Esme's response that shot like venom-coated daggers through every unbeating heart in the room, had me gripping the arms of the sofa for support the piece of furniture could not give me. Were there any words to describe a mother's tears, a mother's pain? She had all but vanished in that horrific instant she realized the truth, until she screamed. As my other two siblings cringed away from the sound, and I had failed to help it and did the same, feeling the utter heartbreak emanating around the suddenly crowded room, I knew for certain that it was, indeed, impossible to put words to. Carlisle had dropped back to her side immediately, grabbing for her, but she motioned him back and shielded her face so we wouldn't see her reaction — a pointless move, but I doubted she was even aware she had been doing it.

Now, Esme had her head well down, her chin almost tucked into her chest, and her body language suggested that she was both scared and miserable. Her eyes ached with tears that could never fall. Her mind was still reeling, fluttering. Even now, hours later, as the sun illuminated the earth through the clouds just enough to show it was daytime, she began to look at the world oddly, as if it were unreal to her and uncertain, as if these things could never truly be happening.

A part of me also felt that this was a dream. A nightmare. My body felt filled with pins and needles straining against my skin, ready to explode, tearing me slowly to pieces in the process. And I saw no end to it. No boundary where the illusion stopped and reality began.

A sound slipped from Esme's lips. Her hand automatically flew up to catch anymore that dared try to escape. It appeared difficult for her to do, more so at this moment than any time before and I wondered what was going through her head, what specific thought was causing this to be harder. Or, perhaps, it was all just piling up in her. Esme was too sensitive, too fragile to be holding things in. I wished to help her...

Before I could think of any way to do that, she was up off the couch in a flash, glass cracking at her feet — the flowers she brought home were smashed deeper into the puddle of water that nobody seemed to care to notice. Upstairs, Tanya's bedroom door shut behind her.

I looked at Carlisle. He sat perfectly still, back rigid, face immobile, his brain most likely still wracking ideas. Pain so deep and so profound cloaked him that I'd almost reached out to touch him to try to dispel it. But I knew a single touch from me would result in the opposite, which was why I didn't dare even think it for Esme. I was too stressed myself to emit any good emotions into the others.

It was unknown to me how, but the hope _was_ there in Carlisle. I could feel it creeping up his spine, calming his breathing, keeping him controlled. But underneath it all, the blind panic he'd been hiding for the sake of us was still present and bubbling to the surface.

How did Carlisle control it? How did he manage to sit so calm and dignified with that frantic sorrow writhing inside of him, edging to dominate?

Poised and regal, Carlisle stood, arms moving out of his lap and to his sides. He stood there for a moment longer, and suddenly, to my shock, his face twisted. The look expressed the exact feelings ruling me. My mouth opened to say something, but I found no words, and Carlisle's expression only lasted for a fraction of a second before he regained control. Then, he quickly turned and strode away, into the back of the house, toward the private study the Denalis kept. I watched him even minutes after he disappeared. Nothing ever shook his outer calm, nothing ever shattered him...before now. In this instant, I could hear Rosalie's common phrase, and I had to agree with her: _Leave it to Edward_. It must be Edward. No history told of a pair of vampires who partnered and, not being mates, had achieved such manifested affection for each other on their own. There was a great bond there, and it was taking a great deal out of Carlisle now, just as it was his wife.

A mother losing a child. A father losing his son. There were some things I'd rather not be able to empathize with, and I hated how I had no choice.

Emmett dropped down on the sofa where Carlisle just vacated. He glared at the fireplace, his hands clawing into his knees.

Emmett couldn't risk sitting around, not doing anything. Pacing. Hunting. Those were activities he used as distractions. I envied him in the way he at least had that much. Even the slightest amount of ease would be precious. Earlier, he had come back to the house around the same time I had, getting situated for Carlisle's and Esme's return. But even now, as Rosalie retreated to the garage, Carlisle to the study, and Esme to the bedroom, Emmett still remained here. I was certain he wasn't about to last much longer in this house. It was too difficult for him to see all of us like this while at the same time being unable to help anybody.

"I can't handle this," he said not a second later, proving me correct. "I need some air." He jumped to his feet, being the only one who bothered with any form of 'goodbye'. I read him easily; he felt as if he was being smothered by the heavy weight of grief that had us cocooned. He'd felt like this since Carlisle and Esme had arrived, but it had only gotten increasingly worse, especially during the slow process of revealing what was happening. That was my fault.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't very tactful. I'm having trouble dealing with—"

The front door closed behind him, shutting out my words. I drew a deep breath, but it didn't help. It was marinated in regret and emotions that were inevitable to be here and impossible to get rid of. The heaviness of it all continued to drag me down.

I would be lying if I said that I failed to understand why Edward would do something as repulsive as forcing himself out of existence. I thought of Alice, and I understood all too well.

The feeling that you have lost the one you loved, the one you lived for... Worse, still, was the feeling that it was your fault they were gone, that you were the one who killed her, who forced her to kill herself, even if what you did was selflessly meant for her well-being and happiness. Terrible. Already having a vivid idea of what Edward was like during his lonely, isolated months, it hurt me to think of him in this new state. It may be selfish, but I was glad I didn't have to feel his emotions. It would make being unable to help him that much worse.

And then I thought of Alice.

Did she know that I knew she lied to me? Did she realize that I, too, did not speak the truth? She must have thought herself quick for getting me to believe she would get out of Volterra alive no matter what fate befell our brother. But she must have known that if her promise wasn't kept, mine no longer applied.

My anxiety increased rapidly as the day waned on. I thought of the different scenarios, of how they could succeed, of how they could utterly fail. There was no possible guarantee, even with Alice's foresight, that the Volturi would set her free if Edward succeeded in his plans. She would not leave Bella there, I knew. I also knew that if Edward succeeded, Bella would die. Unless Alice caught their failure early enough, saw ahead of time that they would lose.

A tad frantic, I glimpsed at the father clock ticking loudly against the wall on the opposite end of the room, and my teeth gritted, for time was moving too fast. I looked away from the clock, not wanting to see the device that seemed to be counting down to the moment a nauseating array of losses swarmed upon this family.

I was hardly aware of Carlisle's return to the living room. He knelt in front of the couch, bending down for something. I was too lost in my mind to care about what he was doing. He clearly wasn't here to speak with me, and his presence wasn't helping anyway, as it usually tended to do. If I focused on his face, I was sure to remember his grief-stricken expression in more detail than what I could handle right now. So I avoided acknowledging him in the room, in hopes that he wouldn't attempt to cheer me up by any means. I wasn't ready for that yet, and I knew at some point, if this dragged out longer, that it was coming.

A very important, very vital part of my being was racing to Italy right now, already there, with a possibility of already being...

I shook those thoughts away with rapid speed. I refused to imagine that.

Perhaps there was a chance they would see Alice's innocence. Improbable but possible. If they didn't simply get rid of her... If they brought her to Aro, Caius, and Marcus, they would see that she was only trying to stop Edward. That would save her, surely. I knew it wouldn't save Bella. Being a human, the poor girl I had grown to see as a sister of sorts would be killed. Would they still let Alice free, though? Free to come home to me? Could I be whole again after today?

No. If a single one of them was lost, _nobody_ would be whole again after today.

So, what if they kept her? The Volturi were known for their impressive talents, and Alice's was as unique and special as the vampire who weilded it. The thought of her belonging to them forever unsettled me. Did it scare me more than her life being put to an end? I didn't know.

Unable to comprehend how much time had passed this time, I was vaguely aware that Carlisle was gone, or that when I shifted in my seat my feet did not slide in a puddle of water or crinkle over glass anymore. Why did he even bother cleaning the flowers up? How could he find room in him for that mess to matter?

Forcing myself out of my miserable thoughts, the pressure of being alone here took over. Weighed down by sadness that wasn't mine, and yet had everything to do with me, I lifted my head slowly, as if the move was physically difficult. I must have been thinking far longer than I'd thought. The sun had reached close to sunset now, its light peeking out behind the gray clouds. The curtains were heavy and dark across the windows, and there were shadows creeping up to brush against my cell phone. Like the shadows by the small lake Alice and I had discovered on one of our previous vacations here. The shadows where I'd held her close to me. Held her so close...

No. I didn't want to think of that. Not now. Not when she was so far out of my protection. Because then I would certainly start thinking about how it might never be again, and how I may have reached the end of my own immortal life.

God, how I wanted to laugh, to cry, to shout, to hunt — hunt for the _kill_.

My fingers tightened over the silver phone now in my hand. I didn't know quite how it got there; carefully, I placed it back on the table.

When I leaned back to my original, rigid position, I felt suddenly overwhelmed. Negative emotions had been weaving in and out of me relentlessly and it seemed even I had my limits of outer self-control. My hands balled tightly, slamming down on my thighs as I hissed, transforming it into a growl at the end, a continuous rumbling in my chest. It was an angry sound, and sad, and frightened, hopeless, and above all, frustrated. What right did I have to claim myself as Alice's mate, as her husband and lover, when I was completely useless to her?

"Oh my dear, hush there."

I hadn't heard Esme come out of the bedroom or down the stairs, but she had moved to my side and was gathering me in her arms before I had a chance to blink. She'd seen my anguish and now sought to wrap me in comfort. Esme clung to me, running her gentle hands through my hair, though I stayed stiff.

"It will be alright, Jasper. There is still hope," she was telling me.

"It's nearly sunset, Esme," I said. "Which means in Italy it's even later. Noon there is well past." She stiffened at the subtle hint of detail I was sure she'd been doing her best to avoid. "Alice still hasn't called."

Esme was quiet for a moment, her hand continuing its soothing motions.

"There could be many different reasons why Alice hasn't called yet," she finally said. "There are many possibilities, and not all have to be...bad."

I shook my head sharply. "It's insanity to think there's nothing to worry about, that nothing will go wrong."

But I knew that, deep down, both people in this room right now were not just guilty of fear, but also insanity. Esme knew this, too.

"Yes. We are insane for thinking that, aren't we? Hopelessly insane. Not much to do about that, I'm afraid." She spoke in a tone meant to comfort, accented by a slight smile.

I thought about that. Thought hard, backtracking every past decision made, all the paths we could have taken that would have lead our lives differently and, yet, might not have made a difference in the end anyway.

I was still considering this when my attention was caught by a picture frame, resting happily on the mantle above the fireplace. The frame was gold and simple, but the image it held was special. It was a picture of the family, of the Cullens, all seven of us. It was taken during our winter break here in 1991. Every one of our eyes crinkled at the corners, our smiles wide, an image of laughter. We were covered in snow. Yes, I remembered that day clearly. An entire field had been transformed into three snow forts as the biggest, longest-lasting snowball fight erupted among the family, everyone taking sides, including our Denali cousins. There wasn't a single moment that day worth forgetting. Somehow during the course of the battle, three groups decreased into two; allies turned into enemies and vise versa. It had become the Cullens versus the Denalis. Even when starting out on opposite, battling ends of circumstances, our family had always ended up coming back together. In one powerful group attack, using all our strengths to their best, we had managed to obliterate our cousins' ice fortress — that was when we had our victory photo taken. Emmett on the left side, me, Rosalie, Carlisle leading in the center, Esme, Alice, and Edward. There was an incredible amount of joy and excitement that day, and the emotions were perfectly captured in that inked image on a small, simple piece of paper. I wondered: Would it ever be like that again?

My eyes moved and met the gold of Esme's. And I saw hope there. Not blind faith or absolute confidence; but a gambler's hope. And it was that faint feeling among the others that swirled in the air, too. I could feel Carlisle's. I could make out Rosalie's. I had rarely contemplated the future in any frame of mind except abject horror, but I found myself wondering, now, about this very serious occurrence of faith. It made sense that, even having no reason to hope for something better than the most likely result, it was what we'd do, because it was all we could do.

"No," I said. "I suppose you're right. Insanity may be the only sane option we have at this point."

I stared again at the picture, hovering over the two on the end, longing for the little, dark-haired one whose angelic smile was brighter than the stars on the darkest, clearest of nights.

Esme's hand closed around mine. "You won't lose her," she whispered.

Her words startled me. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

If there was a warning, I didn't see it, for suddenly I was clinging back to Esme, pressing my face against the cool fabric of her jacket, wrapping my arms around her, tight. For just a moment, I let myself be vulnerable, small, protected within a mother's embrace. I had no tears to want to shed. I had no broken cries escape my lips. But I held onto her, soaking in the love and comfort and the feeling of togetherness, for possibly the last time.

Esme might be able to convince me - and Carlisle her - to believe in the lighter side of our circumstances. I might very much grasp that and not let go. But my instinct was well and alarmed. It was circling around me, attempting to push me back into the troubles we had foolishly made in our lives.

If Alice was to be lost, I would have no regrets when I left to join her, but it was undeniable that my family I would miss. That I apologized, too, for taking myself away from them when they already lost three others whom they cared for. There was simply no other way. If the present soon burned out, there would only be darkness once again, and my future could not exist if there was no Alice. I already lived that horrible life.

Minutes later, heavy feet sloshing through the snow grew closer. Emmett stomped through the back door. A strong scent of moose wafted in with him.

"Emmett," Esme gasped. "What happened?"

I looked, and my eyebrows rose. A strong scent of moose indeed — he was branded in the animal's blood.

"I..." He looked away from us, almost defiantly, like a pouting child about to throw a tantrum. I felt his frustration with him. Then he sighed, face contorting into defeat. "I got a little angry...at the moose—er, both of them."

Esme's need to comfort expanded, blanketing over Emmett. She asked him to sit with us, despite his appearance, as she pulled me to the larger couch where three could fit. He obliged, of course. I detected his distaste at first, for what I assumed was the offer to sit and wait things out with us without anything active to keep his mind off of the half of his family in danger. But refusing Esme at a time like this was not something either of us would dare do, even if she would understand. He sighed as he slumped angrily onto the cushions on Esme's other side.

"It will be okay," Esme assured us, interlocking her arm with Emmett's after touching his cheek. Her voice was well rid of any wavering. Though her feelings were another story, I didn't give her away.

Emmett and I shared a glance at each other. I wasn't the brother who could read his thoughts, but I knew what he was thinking. This was all torture. We'd let Esme, and Rosalie, and Carlisle grasp the faith they must, and we would attempt to do the same, but it was unequivocally the greatest torture we've ever known. Our heartsick little brother could have been saved much earlier if we had given thought to act on our worries, instead of...well, sitting around and waiting for things to fix themselves. Then innocent Bella and my brave Alice would not be in trouble, either. This family's anguish could have been avoided. And maybe that was the worst realization of all.

I sighed silently as I looked down; I noticed Emmett look away, too, his shoulders hunching.

Esme pulled us closer to her, never oblivious to our moments of self-torment. She leaned her head on my shoulder. I suspected she knew I was going to leave them if her grip on faith wasn't enough to save the others. She was trying to spend time with me. I could tell she was optimistic, yes, but there was still that hint of realism keeping her grounded. It was troublesome to watch now that I noticed.

We had no power here. We were vulnerable and useless, something I was least accustomed to. I tasted the atmosphere throughout the house once again. No matter how much they dared to believe in, I noted the invisible chains dragging my family down. Carlisle and Rosalie, Esme, Emmett, and myself — our pale hands clasped together tightly, our arms entwining and weaving around another as if all we had to hold onto to keep body and mind in one piece was each other. I knew because I could feel every fiber of their emotions, every sentiment that plagued them. But the intensified pressure of it now seemed like a blessing. It showed me that, despite how lonesome and abandoned I felt, I wasn't _alone_. I never was. I hadn't been for over fifty years. Disregarding how I would rather not have them in pain either, at least I knew that I had them, to understand, to comfort... Until I left them.

Frustration overcame me again.

For the gentle woman who took me in as her son with no questions asked, and the family who supported me through my struggles, I started to ease the dread in the air, sucking up the gloom like a sponge soaking up water. I wanted to feel what they were feeling, because I deserved it more than they did. And I wanted to give them one last gift, whether it achieved what it was intended for or not. If things ended terribly, they would be alone in their agony and grief; they should not have to suffer that prematurely. So I would stop that for as long as I could.

Within a second, the house's tensions began to lift, and as I sunk, my adoptive sister, brother, and parents found a new strength of hope.


	5. Carlisle

**.:Carlisle:.**

I stared at the glow over the horizon. The sun had set again. Another day had passed; another night loomed over us. Dreary, I looked away from the dimming twilight as the darker hours lit the sky. Twilight was harder on us as it promised the ending of another day. The ending...

Dawn brought hope; the rising sun lifting our spirits. _That_ was what I had to wait for now, what we all had to wait for. Me, my wife, and the three children I had here with me, safe. No one was willing to surrender their hope of success, no matter how many hours had passed since the news with no word on what was going on. The most forlorn twenty-four hours we had seen in all our time, and I earnestly hoped that the worst had not happened.

It was not easy to wait, time passing with a distinct chill in the air that had nothing to do with the crisp wind outside, a wind that was eerily similar to one I remembered back in the early autumn of nineteen-eighteen. And it was to that bleak, yet surprisingly giving year that my mind wandered to consistently for the past thirteen hours, as it was again now.

When I had first met Edward, I could never justify to myself changing him. I had respected Elizabeth Masen for all the strength and devotion she showed her ill husband and son. But no matter Edward's mother's dying wish, who was I to inflict that final judgment and fate on a young boy? It was not my place, and it could not be right. Although I had found a semblance of my humanity, I had detested what I was; a demon, a monster whose throat scorched heatedly until I sucked life out of innocents. It was more than inhuman to intentionally put that hell upon anybody else's shoulders.

But I had seen something in the boy, as well. To this day, I still could not be certain of the specifics, but I had seen it. There was wisdom and courage in those green, green eyes that he possessed that I strongly remembered. Sickly white, thin, and fragile as he was, laying on what I regrettably knew was his death bed, there had been a distinct and unquestionable beauty about him. A soft light, an aura of goodness had encased the child like a halo.

And I saw a bit of myself in him.

From the brief visits I had made with Mrs. Masen and her son — even with Edward Masen Sr. — those past two months, I had been aware that Edward did not agree with his father's tactics with law, but he assumed the constant need to respect his father, to make him proud. He refused, however, to follow in Edward Senior's footsteps. He had told me once - through fits of coughing - that their arguments on the subject were sometimes heated, upsetting his mother; but Edward was set on his decision to be his own self, while, at the same time, continuing to do something his father would approve of. I was not sure if being a soldier was where Edward had planned to go from the start. If it wasn't for the war, it was unlikely. But, in such a strong way, Edward and his father reminded me of myself with mine. Only Edward was stronger, able to break away from what was being forced on him. His potential exceeded my own greatly, of that I had been instantly sure.

After that, I thoroughly wished to save the boy from his unfortunate demise. I had wanted to keep him, to protect him.

This new, strange current of protective instinct for Edward had brought on another thought, a more positive one.

Despite what I was, humanity never ceased in me. I had saved millions because, and only because, I was an immortal, amplified creature. That fact had never been lost on me, yet I never could help but feel it did little to justify turning an innocent person. It was not the first time I'd contemplated creating a companion for myself, and I had worried that it would be the last if it ended miserably. But what I saw in the Masens' son I could not explain, and the light never dimmed, even with his decreasing energy.

That moment of deliberation in that desolate hospital ward, and Mrs. Masen's mysterious heartfelt plea, somehow proved to me that perhaps God had a plan for this boy, and it did not involve his life ending at such an early stage if I could give him another chance. Any other chance.

Being alone for as long as I had, I jumped more rashly onto that whim of faith.

Edward Masen had been running out of time. As it was presently, it had been a race against the clock to save his life. I had to get Elizabeth Masen's corpse into the morgue, along with her son's; though Edward's heart had still been beating, faintly. All the while, the thought of what I was about to do had nipped harshly at me. There were so many precautions to be taken, yet not enough time to ensure them. And when I had finally arrived back to my bachelor's home with Edward in my arms, I had to act immediately. The problem was, however, that I had not a clue how to go about it. The limitations of time had forced me to act the best I could with the thoughts popping up in my mind. I had refused to take any chances that would end in the change failing. I remembered clearly what shape I was in after the vampire in London attacked me, before he bit me, and I had recreated those wounds on Edward. The pain had woke him from his unconscious state, barely - he had been too close to death already - and I had apologized to him, over and over, even believing Edward was beyond hearing me. Finally, stiff and guarded, I had exposed his neck to me and sunk my teeth into his soft skin.

It had been the very first time I had tasted human blood. The moment the warm, euphoric flow of it hit my tongue, I had been frightened that it would not be possible for me to stop and pull back. The taste had been much more appetizing than any animal I'd ever fed from, and that was understating it quite a bit. But I had been prepared. There was a demon inside of me, and he had egged me on, dared me to continue drinking every drop of the boy's warm blood, but it was nothing I could not beat. There was always a choice, and if I did not choose to succumb to the bloodlust once during my centuries of existence, I would not start on Edward Masen. He would live. He must.

And so he did.

There were other problems, of course. I had given Edward another chance at life, but it was no guarantee that he would adopt my lifestyle. At the time, I was the only one of my kind that I knew who chose animal blood to spare human lives, and it was unlikely, as Aro had led me to believe, that there would ever be others who joined me. I had been lucky when Edward conceded to my diet, though he seemed reluctant to accept it. From very vigor and enthusiastic conversations with him, I knew it was not the killing of innocent people that he felt differently about; rather, my own personal philosophy for doing it, the faith I held that he did not. And Edward had never been less than stubborn - refusing to feed as I chose, insisting that he should not resist what he was. I could not force my ideas onto him, however. That one was a choice he had to make on his own.

Every vampire, every being dealt with certain aspects of their lives in a way that best suited their temperament, and for us it was a matter of our capacity for guilt and remorse, as well. Edward had culled from the edges - the serial killers, the rapists, the dark men who were no more human than he had felt he was. He had found a way for him to justify - even relish - the harder facts of our survival. He had fed from the dregs of society. To quench his natural hunger, he had condemned those whose crimes he deemed worthy of the harshest punishment, and so he could feel he did some good in this parasitic life without sacrificing his own pleasure.

And yet, despite that I had understood, I had not fooled myself into thinking it was a just choice. His act of 'playing God' — as I referred to it as — was no less unmerited even with his omniscient ability to read the thoughts of those around him and _know_ who was a human villain. Not in my eyes. But it was so in his, and I had respected that.

Just as I had respected his decision to leave Forks, and Bella, behind.

I closed my eyes with a long sigh.

It was easy to see Bella through Edward's eyes — brave, always beautiful, undeserved, and unattainable. Her skin was so pale it seemed as fragile as bone china; and, I supposed, from the eyes of vampires, that was exactly how fragile she was. Our existence endangered hers. There was no excuse to take that lightly. Edward never did.

But Edward... He could not destroy a future Bella's pure humanity granted her. He could not fathom the idea of her being hurt, especially by what he was. Nor could he sacrifice the soul he believed we've all lost during our transformations. If he loved her, if he was meant to forever love her, then was leaving her not the very least he could do for her? That was what he believed. Of all the paths to choose from, leaving her, for her, was the limit of what he could stand. He regretted ever getting involved, though he loved her dearly. This was his way to fix what he thought he'd caused in Bella's life. He understood how leaving would hurt her in the beginning. He expected, however, that she would overcome and move on as human nature allowed for her to do; unlike for us. For us, the pain would only increase with time, because our powerful memories would never let us forget.

To see my son in that despair was not something that I, or Esme, was going to allow easily. We had tried to reason with him, to tell him that we could somehow work this out if we gave it a couple more weeks of thought, at least. But it had been clear in our eyes — much more, our thoughts — that we, too, had our doubts and concerns. That every member of our family had been worried that a human Bella would not, _could_ not, survive with us in the long run. And Edward refused to change her. So he had to make a decision that I, once again, had to leave up to him.

I had suggested he at least speak with Bella about it; constitute a plan together. He had told me he would handle Bella. Later, I learned just how he went about that. Alice had found me and told me what she saw, apologizing that she didn't give Edward the exact amount of privacy he deserved for the situation, but saying she had been worried about Edward's plan when he ordered us not to say our goodbyes to Bella as we would have liked to. Alice couldn't keep how he 'handled Bella' to herself. She knew it was not her information to share, but she felt she needed to, so she had come to me as a sort of compromise with herself, assuming I would be the right choice to confess it to.

I had immediately understood Edward's plan, of course. Saying everything he was sure would help Bella move on quicker, no matter how painful it would be to say. And I was sure that if I had thought the way he did, I would have done the same. But as it was, the approach had worried me. For as much as Edward, and others in our family, have clearly stated that Bella was indeed human with human emotions, I had not conceded to their thought that her love for him was any weaker in strength than a vampire's to their mate. And if I believed Esme no longer loved me, and she left, I was certain recovery would not be in the near future, if it ever came at all. This would bring consequences for both of them, I had suspected, but it had not been my place to intervene. I could only offer my help, give suggestions, and lightly guide the best I was capable of. They had to learn things on their own.

Meanwhile, I had severely hoped they would both pull through with time. And it _was_ possible for Bella to do that. No matter if she would ever stop loving Edward or not — which I believed she wouldn't — she could still overcome it and live her life. Edward was right about that. But for himself...

I shook my head.

Edward made the choice to leave because it was the only option that protected Bella's life that he, too, could survive with.

Or so we all thought.

A bell tolled from downstairs. I glanced at my wrist. Three more hours had passed — was time really moving this fast? It barely felt like seconds, and nothing had changed in the anxiously still space around me. And I imagined nothing would until the outcome in Italy was revealed. Not even the owners of this magnificent home would be around.

It was when I retreated to the study to collect my thoughts that I contacted Eleazar. I knew he and Carmen would be coming home as soon as they met up with Tanya and Kate — Irina was the only Denali absent for personal reasons that the others did not feel right sharing for her. I wanted them aware of the circumstances before they arrived, and I did not know what state I would be in later. I especially did not wish to place a heartbreaking explanation on anyone else. This was my duty. And it was utterly terrible thinking of what was happening, but saying it aloud... Worse, still, I could make out how upset the Denalis were over this news. And although I insisted they should not be kicked out of their own home by their guests, they insisted right back that they could head off to their cabin for today and tonight, giving the small portion of my family the quiet time we needed together. They promised their hopes would be with Edward and Alice, and us all. I still did not feel happy that we overrode their home, but I was grateful for such hospitable, compassionate friends. And I was somewhat glad that they offered my family our peace in this darkening hour, merely so they would not have to witness us in this state.

It was not lost on me that the mission Alice and Bella faced assumed Herculean proportions. Such brightness and bravery in the pair, each risking everything and everyone they left behind. It was indeed frustrating to let the two go alone, with no way to help them achieve their goal or to save them if they were to fail. Thinking about it brought a strangulating pressure in my chest, an unfathomable hurt. As much hurt as seeing my son Jasper - silent and without hope - seeming resigned to his fate. Or watching Emmett and Rosalie struggle with their helplessness. The depression in the air was thick. It wrapped tightly around us, sealed us up in its intensity.

While they suffered, I languished in my own head, waiting for justice that seemed more and more unlikely to come briskly.

I hadn't shown concern to any of them, of course. I hadn't afforded it. When I see the way the eyes of my family looked up to me for guidance, for support, for faith... I learned quickly to control and keep a level head — while inside I was tormented; the distress gnawing at me like a vulture at a corpse. When the news first hit me, I had been capable of nothing more than shock, remaining silent and unwise, and our hearts ached.

I had done my best to keep Esme in one piece through this. I needed her, and she needed me, but she had been as lost as I was when I found her curled up on the floor. She was much stronger than me, though - a fact that had always been obvious. Esme had been the one to work herself back into a dutiful mother. To my relief and pride, she had battled against the darker side of her mind. All she needed was a little push, and she had found her hope, her strength, and, as it only grew more and more inside her heart, she had left to pass it on.

I realized, now, that despite my strong words of inspiration earlier to my wife - ones that I still thoroughly believed in - I was only succumbing to my distress. I began the turmoil resolute in my faith in every aspect, on every level. However, as time waned on I found myself fading; whereas Esme grew.

Vaguely, I wondered if what flourished in my wife was now lost within me; because how could I be confident when the world was so askew? Edward did not deserve to serve the sentence he was facing - that he had or had not already faced. I could justify many things, but not that. And even as I visualized Edward returning to my arms, the man I clearly saw reflecting back at me told me all _he_ could see was his son disappearing into the darkness. And this time he did not return.

My brow furrowed indignantly at myself for this realization. I had sworn I would not lose my faith. I would simply wait some more. Be patient. There was still time — the stubborn crease above my eyes turned into one of anxiety — and there was no need to panic until panic was warranted.

Still — for my expression did not change, failing to prove that my words were being taken into consideration at all — I found myself toying with the idea more than was healthy, prodded by a nagging voice that told me it was already too late. I knew from my experiences that Aro, Caius, and their guard enjoyed their work far more than necessary. They were also quick to act in their own city, protecting what they created there. They would keep their watchful, deadly eyes on Edward. Ready.

With that thought, there was another fear. Was it as threatening as death? Sensibly, I would say not.

There was a chance — and I had had constant worry of it in the past — that Aro would be quite interested in the talents I'd come to acquire by accident and luck. There was no way around the fact that Edward had touched his hand with Aro's, and now my old friends in Volterra were informed of my _gifted_ family. It would be desirable to them.

They would not act without cause, of course, but that was exactly what Edward had presented them with. If they managed to stop him in time, with the capture of Alice and Bella, they would offer them a place in the Guard or in the afterlife. It would be their choice. And I would want them to agree to belong to the Volturi, even though Aro's possession of my loved ones had been a fear of mine ever since Edward came into my life.

The thought of my children being a part of a different family, having a different father, was displeasing. Knowing that, in time, their bond toward Esme and I, toward Rosalie and Emmett, toward Jasper, would diminish until it was no longer there... They would be bound to the Volturi family, and it would not be by love — they were forced connections. There would be no choice. We would lose them in an entirely different way.

I wondered if they would have the freedom to choose what or who they fed from. Or, more so, if my children would remain feeding the way they were now when their bonds were tied to another family. But I reasoned that it was better than death. Perhaps Jasper could join Alice there. They would be well protected.

Aro not wishing to waste such talent, even Bella's prospects, made for the possibility that my children could survive...just not with the people who loved them.

Why did that seem to bother me as much as the other option when it was certainly the lesser scenario of two fears? Perhaps because, either way, this family would lose somebody.

Another sigh of despair escaped my lips, tinted with irritation. I connected the sudden annoyance at myself to my memories of the days following Edward's return home from his years away from Esme and I. During the time, I had created up cases, manifested excuses to check up on Edward. I hadn't wanted to simply be around him all the time, for fear of being bothersome and frightening him away when we had barely gotten him back. But when Edward had come home, though we welcomed him with open, forgiving arms, there had been a part of me that wondered how long his return would last. Edward had yet to let me or Esme inside his mind. What he had experienced when he was gone was beyond us, and whether he had come back to accept us as his true home, or if it was merely temporary, we could only guess. I would not force him to tell anything, but a lot had been left to the imagination. Little understanding of the situation ultimately generated wariness. So I had found myself creating reasons to disturb him in his room; a lot of the time, regrettably, expecting him not to be there.

Finally, however, Edward had caught on, and he had had enough of me torturing myself.

_"Why are you here, Carlisle?"_

_"I came to bring you these books I picked up. I thought you'd might enjoy them—"_

_"At no prompting from me. No hints from me. You came all on your own, correct?"_

_"Yes..." I was suddenly certain, then, that my true intentions were not as hidden as I had been attempting to make them._

_"Then, if I'd planned on disappearing, presumably, you wouldn't have seen me again." He landed his amber irises directly at me for the first time in days. His eyes were soft, almost sad, but his expression was serious. "Do you think I would do that? Of all the ridiculousness in the world, if I ever dared think of leaving you again, would I ever leave you without saying goodbye?"_

_My mouth opened, but I said nothing. After a moment, Edward stood up and closed the gap between us with a hug. I was shocked. When he let me go, his eyes hardened. He told me to stop worrying about him now, and then walked off._

I had always cherished that moment. Cataloged it. I had taken it as some sort of a promise.

Was it naïve to believe Edward would afford me that courtesy still, when his absence would be much more permanent? It seemed that way. It felt that way. That he would not spare us a glance back over his shoulder as he went. That he would purposely disappear as if it was no momentous than a small trip he would soon return from. It made me disprove of myself for expecting that past promise to be upheld today.

And I realized it made me more than upset. I was angry. And it was at Edward that my anger was directed.

I was mad at him for leaving us distraught for months, for checking in so little, for not making the effort to be happy, and then to simply take himself further away from us permanently, to end it all with one final act of death. And the irate understanding that Edward could not live without his mate, that not one of us could — not happily — fueled the anger I had with him. Because he could not live without her, and he knew this, yet he did not expect to be with her in the afterlife, did he? For he did not believe as I did. Damnation was what he assumed the Lord would grant him - pain clenched my heart when I thought of how Edward must have readied himself for an eternal home in Hell, thinking he deserved it far more now than ever before, now that he had "murdered" the innocent young woman he "carelessly" and "selfishly" fell in love with, as if love was a decision and not a feeling, as if his pure intentions for her well-being were meaningless simply because he had made a mistake. He was going to carry out his plan with no other thought but of what he'd lost. Did he not realize... Did he not care?

I took a steadying breath.

_No_. I knew Edward better than that, and I wasn't being fair. This was irrational anger brought out by my frustrations. No matter his pain, Edward would not forget his family. And I was suddenly intensely sure that he was just as sorry as I selfishly felt he should be. So I extinguished that selfishness in me, because it more than pained me that he would add that guilt to his suffering. Edward did not push us aside; he was merely hurting very deeply, uncontrollably. And ultimately I would suffer with him...and without him.

_Lord, please keep him safe, whichever way this turns out._

For himself, for dearest Bella, for Alice and Jasper, for Emmett and Rosalie, for my lovely Esme; they had such goodness in their hearts and souls. I would sacrifice anything for their lives and happiness to be spared falling into destruction.

And I deserved such sacrifice, as I had completely dishonored my place as patriarch of the family I had promised to take care of when I created it.

In all the years that came before this, I had never reached a point where I'd felt I had hugely neglected my role as a father. As for why, I was somewhat...baffled. I was nothing if not conscientious about my obligations. Yet, regarding Edward's isolation, there was a hindrance, and somehow I'd been content to watch the empty days slip past without confronting him and the problem. I told myself I would get around to it. Weeks had passed, months, and I'd been unable to work up any sense of urgency until this morning, until right now.

The last image of Edward I had was from the day he came to me and told me he needed to get away. I could have questioned him more than I did. I surely knew that the next time I saw him might not be for a long time. But he was quick with his words, not wanting a long farewell. With that, his eyes showed a violent conflict within and he turned to go. With my whole will I kept from stopping him. _Edward will do what he must_ , I believed. I never thought, down deep in my heart, that it would come to this. Which just went to show how much I knew.

They called me wise, but I was far from it. If I was everything people said I was, would I have let it come to this? Could I have protected our family? Would I have saved my son? I could examine this portion of our lives with perfect clarity. I could examine it, and I had, time and again. Try as I might, however, I failed to see anything I might have done differently, save for letting Edward deal with his misery alone. What good father would allow his son to wander the dark corners of the world in his sorrow? It was wrong of me.

And despite how I saw that mistake, and even if I found something more, I sensed my frustration and that fear of loss echoing from my family and knew that it was much too late to matter now.

No matter what Edward had expected to happen, the memory of him would live on in us. He would not be allowed to die quickly, because we would not let him go.

A lifetime of hopes, of dreams, of work, of patience, of prayer... and then, at last, comes the crisis where all was tested.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shivered. Revulsion, confusion, fear... Nothing could drown them out; not even Jasper, who I realized some time ago, was trying. The stakes were raised too high. Our family was on the line — on Edward's line.

As I waited for dawn, I felt the gnawing in the pit of stomach continue, telling me I'd already waited too long. I _wanted_ to get it over with. I _needed_ to know now.

There was a soft knock at the door. I straightened, composing my features with the best of my ability. I caught Rosalie's scent before she entered. Awkward and embarrassed, her white arms were draped around her torso. But she looked me dead in the eyes, in a way only Rosalie was capable — intense, sorry. There was an apology swimming in her gaze that had no reason to be there.

I frowned. Our family always had the most awful streak of remorse. One that not even the most prideful of us could escape, it seemed.

Rosalie misinterpreted my expression.

"Please know, Carlisle, I hadn't known Edward would do this. I hadn't meant _any_ harm. I feel wretched about being so—"

"Do no attack yourself, Rosalie," I told her. "I can't say 'thank you' to you, but I am not going to begin accusing you of anything. Certainly, it's no good thing that this nightmare has occurred. To watch someone you love dearly head off to kill himself — it...tears the heart."

Rosalie looked to stare despondently at her feet. "Slaughters it, really."

Silence overtook the room. I watched her as she continued to eye the floor. When I spoke, my words came out quiet and sad, unmasked.

"If it makes you feel any better, Rosalie, I forgive you."

She met my eyes again, and a part of her seemed relieved. It took her a moment to respond.

"Only their safe return can make me feel any better," she said. With a sharp, tired sigh, she came and sat beside me on the bed.

"I have lived through quite a lot," she began, and it appeared to me that my daughter needed, not to simply apologize for what she felt responsible for, but to free a weight off her chest. I supposed she also felt she owed me. For that, I could protest; but I would let her say what she needed. "I've lived through betrayal, abuse, loss... But, although I've felt various forms of pain, never have I been alone. Never have I had the feeling of being an outcast, of not belonging in some way. I have always had a place where I belonged, and I have always had someone there to share that feeling with. The first couple of years after my change, before I found Emmett, might be my only insight into that feeling; but Esme was always there for me, whether I wanted her there or not - I never truly appreciated that... Still, I came to learn early on that being alone had its advantages. The only thing you can lose is yourself, thereby you can only mourn for yourself. You could only be sorry about yourself. Less things could hurt you."

She grew quiet. I waited, seeing she would soon go on again. When she did, she was fervent.

"But it is not a way to exist! The greatest thing you can have in life is someone to share the passing of time with. For what felt like eons I focused on the ugliness of my life so much that I could never see the beauty. Once I found Emmett... Well, I couldn't imagine a life without him. And I didn't realize Edward was living such an example. I didn't understand, nor, truthfully, did I care to... It wasn't that I wished for him to be alone; I wouldn't wish that for anybody, especially not my own brother. But the reality was not there for me. I did not see it. What I could see, though, was that loneliness in you, and Esme, and Emmett. The family was hurting, and I wanted to fix it... And I wanted the glory of fixing it, too." She grimaced away from me, at the wall.

I squeezed her hand, to try to comfort both of us. "Being alone is a terrible thing," I agreed. "You were as misguided as the rest of us, Rosalie. What is happening now... I only wish that it could have been avoided. That I could have prevented it."

"You? What could you have done?" she demanded in surprise. "There's only so much that could be prevented, Carlisle. And you've done more than your share for Edward. More than enough."

The room filled with a longer silence.

"More than enough," I repeated, in a voice of such emptiness that Rosalie seemed unable to make a reply. A second later, I excused myself from her presence, squeezing her hand once more in reassurance that she would not be charged with this, and I went to find Esme.

_More than enough_. Had I done that? I couldn't imagine it. But, suppose I had: Would the same fate not have befallen us? Perhaps this was meant to happen — an odd twist of fate. Maybe a dark one, but fate nonetheless. God's plan, even — a lightness disguised as dark. But was this really right? Was this downfall really where Edward was headed? Was his tale truly one of tragedy? After all the goodness he has brought to our lives, I could not fathom this sort of ending for my son.

Was I being selfish again by wishing he stayed? If I were truly being honest with myself, was this not _entirely_ about what Edward deserved, but rather what I wanted — which was Edward to be with us? To be with Esme and me? Almost one-hundred years together, Edward and I were father and son in every sense save for biologically — creator and the created, mentor and student, hunting allies, best friends... It took some time to grow that relationship, and in the beginning, it was a bit rough. But then came the day I looked over at him and imagined _not_ seeing him there. I tried to picture life without him and had gone cold at the thought. I had lived through it once, yes, but he came home. This time was different. He wasn't just out there living. He was going to die. I would lose him forever.

If I could not overcome this, how would my family? How could Esme? We would fall apart, and it would only take days.

Panic surged, coupled with an overwhelming wave of rage. Never had I felt such strong negative emotions roiling within me. It was unsettling, yet uncontrollable when I thought of my precious family.

Esme had already lost one son. Would fate be so cruel as to take another?

I entered the kitchen where my wife was staring at the clock on top of the stove.

"Esme," I breathed, saying her name as if it was a prayer. A prayer indeed — she was one answered.

Esme turned to me, her honey-sweet eyes wide with acute terror. When she saw me, she blinked and the terror was gone. I saw her swallow the cries that were building in her chest, up her throat. She was determined to hope, even though their twenty-four hours were up.

My arms went around her, pulling her to me as gently as I would handle any of my human patients. She didn't seem to want that; she pressed her face into the side of my neck, her hands coming up to my chest, gripping the fabric of my shirt in her fist, and she did this in rough desperation. She needed support, strong and hard; not a soft tenderness. She needed to know that I was there. And I needed her however she wanted me. Because Edward... They would kill him.

With an icy dread, my thoughts were becoming clearer, but not any more hopeful. I knew very well how the Volturi worked. If they could not get Edward to agree to join them (which they wouldn't, I was certain now) then they would destroy him no matter what anybody did. Oh, God, would they even wait until he fully provoked them? Or, for precautions, was he already massacred?

I went dizzy at the thought, falling to my knees.

_Enough!_ I ordered, fierce, as my mind reeled from visions of my heartbroken son being hurt and worse.

Shuddering again, I had to force the hideous images away a second time in less than half a second.

There was no denying it: I was scared.

_Lord, please... Please protect my family where I, inexcusably, could not._

I was suddenly fixed in Esme's arms, tight and unmovable. We never let go, never loosened, as she breathed anxious breaths into my hair and I pressed my lips to her ivory cheek for a countless number of minutes. I lifted my body and wrapped my arms around my wife, our positions switching so she could be cradled and protected the way she deserved.

I stared over Esme to the white woods outside. There was a speck of lighter blue and orange beyond the scattered clouds in the sky; a hint of the fading twilight and approaching dawn.

Suddenly, the knowledge of the rising sun coursed through me like a strange form of adrenaline.

"Esme, love... Pray with me."

Esme leaned back, tilting her head up. My request startled her. It wasn't often, if ever, that I asked this of her — in only her would I ever solicit a vampire prayer.

I didn't know what she saw in my eyes, on my face, but her own somehow hardened and softened in a strange synchronization.

"Yes," she answered fervently, "but on one condition."

My brow puckered as I questioned as to what she wanted.

"I will pray with you. I will pray with my whole being." When she continued, her tone turned endearingly threatening. "But you have to believe, too, Carlisle. With your _whole_ being — not just the faithful part."

I understood her request. Instead of answering her, I took her hands in mine and bowed my head, shutting my eyes. I felt her do the same. Together, we spoke the proof of our faith.

**OoOoOoO**

One beat. A single moment.

When Esme and I had ended our prayers, and our heads rose slowly, simultaneously, our eyes locking powerfully, there was only one beat of silence that passed through the air before the sudden, cheery melody of Alice's ringtone vibrated from Jasper's phone. The utter stillness that cast through the house at that moment was indescribable. Emmett's pacing had halted, and Rosalie's soft but tense breaths quieted. The couch shuffled as Jasper stood from his seated position — I imagined — but then it was dead still in this house as the bubbly tune continued to play. It seemed to speed up, like it was impatient for us to answer.

Still, nobody moved.

Something kneaded in my stomach. Was it hope? Or was it hopelessness?

This was the news we'd been waiting to know. Our family would either continue or end at this moment. Was that why Jasper still had not picked up, even though the second ring filled the air? Did he hesitate with the knowledge of the extreme significance of this call? For who knew if it was Alice, calling to inform us no matter which direction it played out, or if it was the Volturi, having attained her phone in some manner, a manner most likely being — no! Have faith, Carlisle.

_I do_ , I promised, caressing Esme's hands in mine and pressing my forehead against hers, our eyes refusing to break contact.

On the third ring, Jasper answered the phone.

"Alice...?" His voice was strained. There was no ounce of an attempt at pretending anymore, no masked tone; it was raw emotion.

The other end hummed a response that I couldn't distinguish. Then there was a pause.

The world was quiet. The world waited.

Finally, Jasper sighed quietly to himself. "Thank God."

With a smile of relief, he whispered the words that saved us all.

"They're coming home. All of them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Aro voice* I love a happy ending! They are so rare.
> 
> Thank you for all the support! Last, but not least, is Edward's return.


	6. Edward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided I needed to write Edward's POV as well because I think he would have thought a lot about his family (especially Carlisle and Esme) while traveling to Volterra to die, and their reunion is something I wish we got more of.

**.:Edward:.**

Forks was a town I had never planned to step foot in again. The memories were too great, simultaneously too light and too dark to bear. And yet, resurfacing from the darkest days of my existence thus far, here I was. Despite the agonizing loneliness I had thrown myself into, the debilitating depression my mind had succumbed to, and the weakness I had shown that clearly did not deserve a reprieve for my selfishness in love, I was here once again, with the angel that lit my destructive heart on fire, with her warm hand in mine as she slept soundly, safely. I vowed to always keep her safe. It would be my ultimate goal. Even if she decided not to take me back after this - a thought that pained me in the depths of my immortal bones - I would be her guardian angel for the rest of her life. Although, 'angel' was a loose term here.

I was anything but an angel, especially now, for what I had put her through, for what I had put Charlie through, for what I had put my family through. Closing my eyes, I tried not to think of how my absence must have affected them, and failed. I knew I couldn't wait anymore. Bella, as beautiful as she always was, was lost in a deep, well-deserved sleep, and though I never wished to leave her side again, there were others who I loved that I wanted to see, to apologize to. And to also never leave behind again.

Sighing heavily, I slipped out of Bella's warm grasp and out her window.

Running usually gave me a sense of relief, but tonight it was grueling. Even with my speed, I couldn't arrive home fast enough.

_Home._

My family's faces flashed through my mind in a firelight glow, filling me with a warmth I had been avoiding for so long, feelings I hadn't felt that I deserved. I probably deserved them less now, but I knew at this moment I wanted nothing more than to be back with them. As long as they allowed me.

Why wouldn't they, though? Carlisle and Esme had embraced many of my returns before with arms they couldn't open wide enough. Even if a strong part of me wondered if this was the mistake that would push these two lovely people to the breaking point, the one that would have them sending me away for good, I knew their thoughts at our small airport reunion countered that fear a million times over.

Emmett was all too willing to accept me back, easygoing as he was. Rosalie had her own reparations to make. As I gathered from her troubled thoughts in the car ride back to Forks, my cavalier sister was anything but. Between her mind and Emmett's memories of the past 24 hours, I felt I couldn't blame Rosalie for a mistake that was ultimately mine.

Jasper was the one I was most concerned about. Not only had I put myself and Bella on the line; I put him and Alice there, too. Would he trust me again after that? I was afraid to find out.

The thick pines began to disperse as I hit the boundaries of our old house, reveling in the familiar scents. A bombardment of intimate thoughts finally reached me, and less than a second later my face was in all of them. Excitement, relief, impatience, love - the anticipation of waiting for me to finally walk back through these doors. Even knowing why I had had to leave them, the guilt bit ferociously into me.

Alice was the one waiting for me through the front door. I caught her as she threw her arms around me, hair flattened against my chest like midnight waves. Her summery scent - a mixture of gardenias and what can only be described as the sweet smell of fresh rain - eased some of the tension I had built up on the run here.

"Didn't we just spend the last twenty-four hours together, Alice?" I said, trying to keep a light mood. The conversations coming would be much darker.

"But I didn't get to hug you," she said as she pulled away. "And I really, really wanted to."

She and I had finalized our amends on the plane ride home. The fact I had put her in a situation to confront the Volturi still made my stomach queasy. Even though she forgave me, I could never.

Jasper stepped into the foyer then. Instantly, I was back to wondering if he was as forgiving as his mate. My brother had an intensity in his liquid-gold eyes as he read my emotions and I tried to gauge his. There _was_ anger there, riled and frustrated. His outrage, his slanders, his _How dare you_ 's, his hurt - all rapidly converging on my conscious. I took it all, knowing he was right. I let him down. I let Alice down. I let everyone down. And then, just as I was quite ready to get on my knees and plead for absolution, his mood released itself from its garnered strain with:

_But you are a close brother, Edward, and I will forgive you._

"Jasper-" I started, but he held his palm up to stop me. He stepped forward, placing an affectionate hand on my shoulder and squeezing.

"It's nice to have you back, Edward," he said. The sincerity in his words shocked me as much as it contented me.

Next to him, Alice hugged his arm with a smile that was blinding. "We missed you."

Emmett appeared behind them, then, agreeing. "We really did! Who knew you could be such an idiot?"

Before I could stop him, Emmett had me off the floor in a hug that had my bones on the edge of cracking.

"Ahh, Emmett!" I struggled, futile as it was to combat his monstrous strength. It was a good thing I didn't have to breathe with his massive arms crushing my rib cage like this.

He laughed, giving me another tight squeeze before dropping me and ruffling my hair. I refrained from swatting him away, but I still glowered at him. It was hard, though; his heart was so light, his relief so potent. I'd never seen his eyes that alleviated. How upset must he have been to bask in his own relief this strongly?

Emmett reached around Jasper and Alice, and tugged his wife forward from the quiet corner she was hoping she'd disappear into. Rosalie's dark lashes made soft shadows across her cheeks as she gazed at her heeled feet, and then at me. There was nothing snide coming from her head, playful or otherwise, as Emmett and Jasper had been, respectively. There was that same relief in her as the others, yet when she looked at me she felt overwhelming fear. I realized that, although she had freely given me honest explanations through her memories on the car ride earlier, something cuttingly difficult for my sister to ever do, I had yet to utter a word or offer a glance toward her.

When Emmett and Jasper looked from Rosalie to me, their worry mirrored the others. I would always forgive my sister, but the way they all feared I wouldn't was slightly discouraging.

My siblings stood before me in an arch, relieved, but protective, and my guilt was instantly renewed. I realized just how strongly they saw me as their younger brother, one to care for and to protect, and I had hurt them all.

"Listen," I said, the shame I felt choking the strength of my voice. Clearing my throat, I looked at each of them individually, hoping to convey the depths of my regret. "Em, Jazz, Rose... I want to apologize for what I put you through. It wasn't fair of me."

Although the three pairs of eyes that stared back at me were soft, a hard edge of thoughts suddenly interrupted the relief in the air. A breeze swept down from the top of the stairs where Esme appeared. The look on her face was anything but happy.

"What you _put them through_?" She whispered, vehement, eyes sparking like a fuse. A knot formed in my chest, as chaotic as Esme's thoughts. Uncharacteristically enraged, my mother for all intents and purposes glared down at me, petite hands balled into hard fists at her sides. "Do you _have_ any idea what we went through? Any idea at all?"

I balked. "I- I'm-"

"Exactly," she all but growled, unsettling the room further. This was not the Esme I expected to come back to. This was not the Esme at the airport, and although I had sensed the anger brewing in her then, among the disappointment and the relief, no part of me predicted the face of the woman boring down on me now.

Carlisle came, quietly putting a hand on her shoulder, but nobody dared utter a sound.

"How well can you possibly understand without knowing?" she continued. "The things we said to each other, the things we did, the things we _felt_? Horrible, awful things. None of it can be taken back."

A glistening sheen coated Esme's suddenly sad gaze. An agonizing suffering rolled through her, and it hit the others in a way I couldn't describe. Suddenly, the room was filled with a blur of pictures, of memories. Dark, shattering, heavy memories. I realized they had been trying not to think of it. They didn't want to, never wanted to again. But Esme... Esme released them all from what they were holding back.

And I saw it all.

All the desperation:

_Rosalie, what is it?-_

_-We have to stop him._

_It was never supposed to turn out this way.-_

_-I wish I was stronger._

_Jasper, what's wrong?-_

_-Why would he leave his phone?_

_This can't be happening.-_

All the fear:

_Something's happened.-_

_-The damage is already done._

_Emmett, I'm scared.-_

_-It's too late._

_He's headed for Italy.-_

_-The odds aren't good._

All the anger:

_Are we supposed to just let Edward die?!-_

_-So you_ have _come to accuse me!_

_There is no way to know this time, Carlisle!-_

_-How it's not what!? Not_ fair _? Not_ right _? How true I know that is... But really, you should worry more about your own well-being, Rosalie, you haven't seemed to be doing much of that lately._

_Goddamn it! We're not going to lose ANYBODY!_

_-How could he leave without saying goodbye?_

All the doubt:

_I should have done more for my son.-_

_-How many more people could I ruin in less than twenty-four hours?_

_To think there was a limit of what I could do for her.-_

_-I was his brother. I should have helped him when he needed it._

_-How would we live without our son?  
-Pray we never find out._

All the pain thereafter:

_-He was going to die. I would lose him forever._

_Our family was incomplete. I just wanted it back. I just wanted it back!-_

_I cannot bear it, Carlisle. I cannot.-_

_-Esme had already lost one son. Would fate be so cruel as to take another?_

And the final, desperate reach for hope, when that was all they had left:

_Edward will come home - he always does._

The memories rained around me like a blizzard-turned-avalanche, burying me alive. I staggered back until I was pressed against a wall. My breath came in strangled. It was one thing to suffer through my own pain, but to read through theirs, to feel it all, to see it all knowing it was my doing, that I had hurt so many people I only ever intended to love was heart-rending. There was an overwhelming urge to cry or scream or pound the wall with my fists or to simply crumble on the ground, to look as pathetic as I felt. How were they forgiving me for all of that? It made no sense. I was a monster.

"Edward." Carlisle and Esme - voice gentler now - together tried to recapture my attention. I could barely focus. Thoughts were shifting back to the present, but I was already stuck on the past. I was ready for my siblings to take back their apologies, some irrational part of my brain convinced their memories would remind them why I didn't deserve their concern, let alone absolution.

Again moving as one, I felt Carlisle's and Esme's presence closer than before. The door was right behind me. They could tell me to leave. They could shove me out and I wouldn't have the right to stop them, nor the energy. The venomous flow in my veins quickened at the thought, as the fear of being sent away from the two people whose forgiveness mattered most surfaced again.

"Look at us, Edward," Carlisle softly urged.

The visions in my head collided all around me. I hadn't realized I had tried to shut them out by closing my eyes until Carlisle told me to open them. I took a deep, shuddering breath before obeying. My parents' concern was etched on every corner of their ivory faces. Beside my anxiety, seeing them overwhelmed me with how much I had actually missed them.

Esme lifted a hand gingerly. She hesitated before caressing my face in her warm palm. Her eyes glazed over again with collected tears. "I am sorry for how that came out, Edward," she said.

I struggled to find my voice. "You were hardly in the wrong. I hurt you. I hurt everyone."

Rather than placate me, she quietly asked, "Why did you do it?"

"I...wasn't thinking straight, Esme," I answered, searching for the truth in my own head. Why _had_ I done it? I knew the uncomplicated, clear answers - the agony of not only losing Bella forever, but believing I had killed her... However, the entire journey was hazy at best. "Honestly, Esme, I can't remember much of my thought process over the past few months. It was all very...dark." My mother's face scrunched from concern to pain. "I don't mean to make you sad, Esme, please. You shouldn't feel bad for me."

"There is nothing wrong with a mother being concerned about her son's mental health," Esme said. Then more accusatory: "I almost lost you because of it."

Sighing, I regretted that she was right - we were going to have to get through the wound before it could heal. The least I could give her was the truth, however hard it was to say, to admit.

"I wasn't in the right mindset when I made the decision to go to Italy," I said. "Well, I hadn't been in the right mind for what felt like a long time. There were many weeks I found myself without the will to move at all. Eventually, the will to care about anything vanished. I couldn't remember what was important anymore. It was like my personality, the whole essence of who I am faded into a shell, leaving me as nothing but a shadow. So I stayed there, in the shadows, because there was no way I was bringing them home to devour you, too."

Esme choked on a sob, echoed by the tender heartache of the rest of my family. It was bewildering. After all these decades, how had I missed the solid entity I was in their hearts? Alice's confidante. Emmett's best friend. Jasper's brother. Rosalie's family. Everything they were to me was reflected back. And all I had been able to think about at the time was Bella. I spared them no second thought, because I was sure that they would survive. Maybe they would have; but, I see now, my death nevertheless would have been cataclysmic to the family bond.

Jasper would have had no choice about the weight of mourning he would feel.

Rosalie would have blamed herself for the rest of eternity. Like she had my blood on her hands.

Emmett and Alice would have lost a part of their bright spirit, and would have had to console their mates on my behalf.

Esme and Carlisle... For them, I _had_ spared a second thought. Thinking of them, though - their kind faces, their loving hearts, their beautiful minds - I knew I had to refrain from ever thinking of them again if I was going to do what I had to.

And Carlisle... With the added fear that if he did not lose me to death, that he would lose me to Aro anyway.

"I'm sorry," I said again, whispering. "I'm still unsure that the best course of action would have been to bring my dark cloud home to rain here, but I had hoped... I had hoped to have at least spared you from any more of my destruction. In hindsight, I can't quite come to the same conclusion without regrets; but at the time, I truly felt I _had_ to die."

A wave of emotions washed over the room. My shame, my embarrassment mixed with the sadness, the protectiveness, the hurt. Then alloyed with the understanding, the compassion, of all things. I grimaced, meeting Carlisle's eyes. A moment passed between us, our hearts and head syncing in a way it always had, silent and strong and urgent.

Finally, it was his turn to voice his thoughts.

"Edward. Depression is nothing to be embarrassed about." I dropped my gaze as he confirmed out loud what I already knew about my mental health. "It's something that cannot be helped, only coped with. Not only that, but that kind of mental state warps one's judgments, one's perceptions, one's emotions. And for us - we feel emotions much stronger than humans. Where theirs might be pushing their own limits, ours would cross that line. I should have realized this earlier-"

"Please don't! Please. Don't blame yourself for my decisions. I'm a grown man. You have nothing to do with me."

"I have _everything_ to do with you."

The intensity of his rich voice took me aback. He held my gaze again, with that same weighted energy.

"Edward, you are my greatest friend. You are part of my family. You are my son. You were my first companion, the first to secure a place in my three-hundred-year-old heart, so you will listen to me. Listen, because we all make choices. And you, Edward, are constantly mentally persuading yourself that, for whatever reason, your mistakes hold more power than any of ours. In everything you do, you try to do right by people, no matter the cost to you, and that's something admirable. It pains me to see you berate yourself every time it doesn't go as planned. You did what you genuinely thought was the right thing.

"Of course, you also have the right to regret those decisions.

"However, Bella's actions were her own. Alice's actions were hers. Rosalie, Jasper, Emmett - all had their own choices to make. They had to trust Alice when she told them not to get on a plane to Italy. What if they hadn't listened? They held no obligation to adhere to her suggestions, but they believed that staying out of the way was the right thing to do. Imagine, though, if it had not been. If it had all ended badly, would you have told them their belief had been wasted, that they were immoral, that they were monsters for 'letting' you die?"

"Of course not," I answered, repulsed by such a thought.

"Well, my son, your pedestal is no higher than theirs."

I shook my head wildly. "But- I-"

Carlisle raised an eyebrow at my inarticulate display. The minds of the others agreed with his assessment. I tried to corral my own thoughts. Was I truly so narcissistic that I put myself on a higher pedestal, not because I thought I was better, but because I _expected_ me to be better, to do right by them? It was a heavy question, one I didn't have the answer to right now.

"Still," I insisted. "The current situation, and the choices they were forced to make regarding it, was because of me, Carlisle. You can't argue with that."

His lips quirked down, eyes saddening. "It is quite easy to assume that in hindsight. But let me remind you that we all chose to let Bella in our lives, did we not? We all chose to get close to her. We all chose to have a birthday party for her. We all chose to leave. No matter how inconsequential things may have seemed at the time, we all had to choose. And then, well, we all chose to let you leave."

And there it was again, behind my father's frustratingly indisputable logic, he still blamed himself. As always, the pot calling the kettle black. Carlisle could see I saw through to this, too, and sighed.

"Behind your strangulating ' _I'm fine_ 's, you were dealing with the devastation of a lost heart," he said, him and Esme sharing a knowing glance. There was never a moment they didn't doubt that letting me be alone was a bad decision, and now I had prompted their fears to life. "At first, I hoped traveling would help you, not unlike the way exercise helps humans with their depression... After a while, however, I knew it wasn't working for you. I wanted to find you, to bring you home so we could get through it together - that was what you needed, and I should not have hesitated. I should have acted as if the time filling our glasses was finite, rather than inevitable. Don't get me wrong, Edward - I am not blaming myself for your personal choices; I am blaming me for mine. When we make decisions regarding people we love, sometimes we fail them.

"So, do not ever think you are alone in that."

He wasn't wrong. Of course he wasn't. I wanted to argue, though. How could I compare all that's happened to anything Carlisle has done? I couldn't! He had to see that, right? Running my fingers through my hair, I groaned at the growing frustration. The hell if I knew right from wrong anymore.

His movement was so fast I hardly caught the thought process behind it, but suddenly Carlisle cupped the back of my neck and pulled me forward until our foreheads pressed together. The intimacy was embarrassing with an audience, but I couldn't break the contact I hadn't realized I was starved for. My eyes glistened without my consent. Inwardly, I cursed myself. I had to cry in front of everybody, too?

Carlisle's smile gentled along with his eyes, as if sensing the inner war between my childish chagrin and my sated longing.

_You are everything to us, Edward,_ he thought.

And then I was seeing it all from my family's heads again. The memories, the emotions, the protectiveness, the adoration, the pride, the love - blending throughout their thoughts like a canvas of battling watercolors. All the things we've always known and, yet, in all these years, never really openly shared.

I swallowed, relaxing in Carlisle's embrace.

"I wouldn't have left you, you know," I shared suddenly.

Carlisle stiffened slightly, his smile falling a millimeter.

"I'd never join Aro," I clarified, needing him to know that. Realization dawned on him, his haunting fear voiced aloud.

"And... And I couldn't say goodbye," I added, quieter now. "Even for Bella, I wouldn't have been able to go through with my choice had I heard your voice. I also didn't want our last conversation together to be _that_ one, had I still done it..." I grimaced, shaking the dread from the situation before continuing. "In any case, you've been my father a long time... I plan for it to stay that way forever. Or for as long as you'll have me. Whichever comes first."

Carlisle's smile was back tenfold. His thoughts so filled with love and adoration I was glad it was too much for him to articulate out loud for everyone to hear. I had shared enough affection for the both of us for the next two decades, _at least_.

"Now you've done it," I heard Jasper mutter, amused, moments before Esme broke her silence.

"Oh, Edward!" The high in her emotions was overbearing as she wrapped her arms tightly around me, pulling me close to her in a firm embrace. "I am never letting you go," she decided.

I chuckled, hugging back just as tightly. "One of us will have to hunt sometime."

"No," was her immediate, stubborn response. I laughed freely this time along with the others. Esme's elation doubled.

Alice shimmied her way into the hug, and before I knew it the three of us were lifted off the ground, wrapped in Emmett's giant arms.

"I wish you would stop doing this," I grunted, getting a mouthful of Alice's spiky hair. Still, I couldn't contain my smile. It had been a long time since I smiled, or heard the laughter of my family. In a way, it was cathartic.

"You know you love it," Emmett bellowed, Carlisle and Jasper sharing a look of amusement as they, too, joined in the laughter. Behind them, Rosalie smiled fondly at her husband, then, hesitantly, at me. I distinguished her nerves as fast as I could and smiled back at her, giving a slight nod.

_Yeah, I forgive you._

The relief was my blonde sister's own form of guilt-cleansing. She automatically moved closer to the family circle as the sentiment spread through her. It was a nice look on her, that tenderness she showed only for her family. Jasper felt it, offering her his arm with a courtly smile, which she graciously wrapped in her own. It was hard not to be smiling when the darkest of the conversations were over and the true relief and comfort we sought couldn't be found in the public space of the airport or around the negative energy of Charlie Swan.

Remembering Charlie's hostile demeanor had me slumping again. What I felt here, in this foyer, back with my family, was good. And maybe Carlisle was right, that I shouldn't shoulder all this blame. I wasn't sure if I could help it any more than he could, but his wisdom was always noted for future analysis. In any case, there were still repercussions to handle...as well as Bella herself. The mystery of her thoughts in all this.

Esme broke me out of my reverie. "Go on then."

"Huh?" I blinked, as Esme turned me toward the door and gently pushed. Everyone was still smiling at each other, then all at me.

"Go to her," Esme said.

Realization hit, and I kissed her cheek. "Thanks, Mom."

She sighed contentedly. "I missed that."

"I will do it every day from here on out," I promised, only partly joking. She laughed.

With one foot out the threshold, I paused. I saw my back in the reflection of six different minds - a picture that gave me de'ja'vu. Their thoughts were exceedingly happier than the last time they watched me walk out the front door, though. I looked over my shoulder at them - at Alice, and Emmett, and Rosalie, and Jasper, and Esme, and Carlisle - at the faces of the people who I loved with my whole being.

"Thank you. All of you. For being my family."

And then, before dashing into the night, I told them what I should have all those months ago.

"I'll be back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .
> 
> .
> 
> .
> 
> Edward in Terminator's voice: "I'll be back."
> 
> LOL Please don't remember him this way.


End file.
